Major League Baseball has signed a multi-year deal naming Polymarket its official prediction market exchange and, in a separate move, entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The two agreements give the league a formal role in a fast-expanding market it had previously pushed regulators to police more closely.
The Polymarket deal gives the platform exclusive rights to MLB marks and logos within its prediction market products, access to official league data through Sportradar, and league branding across MLB’s digital channels and events. MLB also said the partnership is built around a dedicated integrity framework for baseball-related contracts.
The regulatory piece matters just as much. The CFTC said its agreement with MLB is the first memorandum of understanding of its kind between the agency and a professional sports league, coming a week after the regulator opened a public rulemaking process and issued new staff guidance around prediction markets.
Polymarket gets official league access
For MLB, the commercial side of the deal is straightforward. Polymarket and its brokers will be able to use official league branding inside prediction market products, while drawing on official data distributed through Sportradar. MLB framed that package as an exclusive rights arrangement tied to its new “official prediction market exchange” designation.
That gives Polymarket something more valuable than simple sponsorship inventory. It moves the company inside MLB’s formal data and brand ecosystem at a time when sports-linked event contracts are drawing closer attention from regulators, exchanges, and leagues trying to define where engagement ends and integrity risk begins.
MLB wants tighter controls on risky contracts
MLB said a central part of the Polymarket arrangement is restricting markets that present a higher integrity risk. The league specifically pointed to contracts tied to individual pitches, manager decisions, and umpire performance, all areas where inside information or manipulation concerns are more acute than in broader game-outcome markets.
The league also said Polymarket will build integrity controls into its U.S. rulebook so the same standards apply across brokers using its market structure. MLB added that it intends to maintain integrity relationships with other exchanges offering baseball contracts as well, not just Polymarket, and expects those venues to adopt comparable protections in their own rulebooks.
The CFTC pact sets up a direct integrity channel
The MOU with the CFTC is narrower than the commercial partnership, but it may prove more important over time. The agreement creates a framework for the league and the regulator to discuss and exchange information related to baseball integrity and event contract markets, with designated contacts from each side expected to meet at least monthly.
The document does not change any law or compel either side to hand over information. It states that any sharing remains discretionary and subject to existing legal limits, while information received under the MOU can only be used for official purposes tied to the CFTC’s statutory responsibilities or MLB’s integrity function.
A signal that prediction markets are becoming part of league policy
The timing is not accidental. MLB said Commissioner Rob Manfred signed the CFTC agreement one year after the league sent the agency a letter calling for stronger integrity protections in the prediction market space, and the CFTC has since moved to gather public comment on whether new rules are needed for event contracts traded on these platforms.
Taken together, the two deals show MLB has shifted from watching the category at arm’s length to trying to shape how it develops around baseball. The league is not only monetizing the space through an official partner, but also building a direct regulatory line to the federal agency that oversees event contracts in the U.S. derivatives market.
