I doubt that this is the whole truth as to why this (35 year?) partnership is ending, but good for Manfred for framing it this way. When it first started, the four letter network couldn't get enough baseball: four to five games per week including the Sunday Night exclusive, BB2N every night, and hosts that were at least conversant in the sport. But in recent years, aside from the SN game itself and the lead up to it, the programming on most of the rest of the various ESPN 'platforms' either ignores or insults baseball. The question of what replaces this is going to be interesting and quite possibly not in a good way.