After rereading my comment I think I was a bit vague, but i'll try to clarify.
Most leagues DO sell their rights to other big companies to have them handle it however they see fit for a large annual fee.
MLB does it partially, some games are shown through cable tv (There are so many games a year that only a small portion is actually aired nationally) the rest are done via regional sports networks (RSNs) that aren't shown nationally. In order to make some money out of this situation MLB created MLBtv that lets you watch all games as long as there are not nationally aired or a local team that is serviced by a RSN. Recently there have been changes because one of the biggest conglomerate of RSNs has gone bankrupt forcing MLB to buy them out and MLB is trying to negotiate a new national cable package with the big telecoms. I believe ESPN has negotiated with MLB to buy out MLBtv but details are scarce.
MLS is a smaller league and Apple bought out exclusive streaming rights for 10 years for some ungodly amount of money. NFL and NBA also have some streaming options but I am less knowledgeable about them but I assume it's similar to MLBtv where there are too many games to broadcast so you can just watch them with a subscription to their service.
In the end of the day these massive deals are the biggest source of revenue for the leagues and the more ways they can divide up the pie among different companies they can extract more money in total. Just looking that the amount of contracts for the US alone is overwhelming.
Most leagues DO sell their rights to other big companies to have them handle it however they see fit for a large annual fee.
MLB does it partially, some games are shown through cable tv (There are so many games a year that only a small portion is actually aired nationally) the rest are done via regional sports networks (RSNs) that aren't shown nationally. In order to make some money out of this situation MLB created MLBtv that lets you watch all games as long as there are not nationally aired or a local team that is serviced by a RSN. Recently there have been changes because one of the biggest conglomerate of RSNs has gone bankrupt forcing MLB to buy them out and MLB is trying to negotiate a new national cable package with the big telecoms. I believe ESPN has negotiated with MLB to buy out MLBtv but details are scarce.
MLS is a smaller league and Apple bought out exclusive streaming rights for 10 years for some ungodly amount of money. NFL and NBA also have some streaming options but I am less knowledgeable about them but I assume it's similar to MLBtv where there are too many games to broadcast so you can just watch them with a subscription to their service.
In the end of the day these massive deals are the biggest source of revenue for the leagues and the more ways they can divide up the pie among different companies they can extract more money in total. Just looking that the amount of contracts for the US alone is overwhelming.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_broadcasting_contracts_...