Rob Manfred spoke with the media today and said that his current tenure as MLB commissioner will be his last. His current term runs through January of 2029. Alex Speier of The Boston Globe was among those to relay the news.
“You can only have so much fun in one lifetime,” Manfred said, per Evan Drellich of The Athletic. “I have been open with them (the owners) about the fact that this is going to be my last term.”
Manfred, now 65, has been the league’s commissioner since 2014, replacing the retiring Bud Selig. During that decade at the helm, he has proven to be incredibly unpopular among baseball fans but has consistently received the approval of club owners.
That tenure has had many standout elements, notably the significant rule changes aimed at speeding up the pace of the game, the expansion of the postseason, the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal, the 2020 pandemic, the 2021-22 lockout and the Athletics’ planned relocation to Las Vegas.
The rule changes naturally rankled many purists among baseball fans. The fact that no players received any punishment for the sign-stealing and that Manfred referred to the World Series trophy as a “piece of metal” also caused a great deal of upset, particularly among fans of clubs that lost to the Astros in the postseason. The ongoing relocation of the A’s was clearly not popular in Oakland. The work stoppage, baseball’s first since the 1994-95 strike, was not well received by those who want players to receive a larger chunk of baseball’s revenue relative to the owners.
But the commissioner is ultimately chosen by those owners, who have clearly been happy with the profitability of the game. In July of 2023, Manfred was unanimously approved for another five-year term, with no reports that there was any hesitation or alternative path considered by the bloc.
As with all modern sports leagues, baseball has been gradually pivoting from cable TV towards online streaming. This has not been without challenges, as seen by the tumultuous recent history of the Diamond Sports Group, but the league has also signed lucrative streaming deals with outfits like Apple and NBC. That’s in addition to national deals with traditional broadcasters like Fox and ESPN. As Diamond Sports Group’s relationship with MLB clubs has splintered, the league has taken over broadcasts for some clubs and has future plans for a multi-team streaming package, which would essentially be like MLB.tv but without blackout restrictions.
Despite various challenges, Manfred said in late 2022 that league revenue would be a record $11 billion, per Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times. At the time of Manfred’s extension vote in July of last year, the league pointed out on X that attendance was trending up, perhaps a symptom of those pace-of-play changes.
More to come.
