• by Wayne Friedman , 4 hours ago

In the news story "MLB Ad Volume Falls, Revenue Sinks To $342M," published in Television News Daily on Oct. 19, advertising revenue estimates from iSpot for the 2025 MLB regular-season games and playoffs -- through League Champion Series (LCS) but not the World Series -- included ad data/airings/impressions from regional sports networks (RSNs). This consisted of live games, re-broadcasts, and non-live programming.

However, new estimates for the 2026 regular season and playoffs do not include advertising data from the RSNs -- which have shifted to "digital only" classification. Under its new parameters for only "live national, linear games"  -- without RSNs -- iSpot estimated advertising revenue (for the regular season through LCS) at $319.96 million, coming from 43,333 airings resulting in 31.9 billion impressions. This compares to the 2025 season, where iSpot estimated an advertising spend of live, national linear games (with no RSN ad data) is $358.76 million -- coming from 52,028 airings, resulting in 40.8 billion impressions.