Fresh off a record-smashing World Series, Major League baseball has finally inked long-awaited new media rights deals with NBC, Netflix, and ESPN.
The new rights packages came about after MLB and ESPN broke up this year after 35 years of national games on the cable sports giant. The new deal will keep ESPN in the baseball business, but its flagship Sunday night games will move to NBC Sports, which will now have year-round live games that night: Sunday Night Football during the NFL season, NBA games once the NFL season is over and baseball in the late spring and summer. NBC is also getting ESPN’s Wild Card rights.
The deal with Netflix, initially thought to be just for the annual Home Run Derby during the All-Star break, is somewhat more extensive than that. The streamer will also have MLB’s opening night game and a revived Field of Dreams game next year in Dyersville, Iowa (where the 1989 Kevin Costner movie was filmed). MLB last staged a Field of Dreams game in 2022. MLB Network’s production team will produce the three events.
NBC Sports and Netflix will each carry one special event game per season in 2027 and 2028.
MLB’s agreements with ESPN, NBC Sports and Netflix run for three years, bringing them into alignment with existing rights holders Fox Sports, TNT Sports and Apple TV. Their current rights, including for most of the postseason on Fox and TBS and a package of Friday night games on Apple TV, are unaffected. The entire MLB rights portfolio will be up for bid again in 2028.
“Our new media rights agreements with ESPN, NBCUniversal and Netflix provide us with a great opportunity to expand our reach to fans through three powerful destinations for live sports, entertainment, and marquee events,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “Following our last World Series game that averaged more than 51 million viewers globally, these partnerships build on MLB’s growing momentum that includes generational stars setting new standards for excellence, new rules which have improved the game on the field, and increases in important fan engagement metrics like viewership, attendance, participation and social media consumption. We’re looking forward to tapping into the unique areas of expertise that ESPN, NBCUniversal and Netflix each bring to the sport for the benefit of our fans.”
The new ESPN deal will bring live, out-of-market games to ESPN’s streaming platform via the acquisition of streaming service MLB.TV, which will be folded into the ESPN app. That deal will give ESPN a big point of entry into regional broadcasts of games as well, as it also includes exclusive local-market streaming rights for several teams: the San Diego Padres, Cleveland Guardians, Seattle Mariners, Minnesota Twins, Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies.
Additionally, ESPN will produce 30 regular-season games for its linear networks and streaming service, primarily on weeknights in the summer. Subscribers to the ESPN Unlimited plan will also get access to an out-of-market “game of the day” during the regular season.
In addition to Sunday Night Baseball, NBC Sports will have an MLB Sunday Leadoff package consisting of 18 games with late-morning start times. Seventeen of those games will stream on Peacock and air on the relaunched NBCSN cable network, while the other will simulcast on NBC and Peacock. Peacock previously carried the leadoff games in 2022 and 2023; they streamed on the Roku Channel for the past two seasons.
Following the early Sunday games, Peacock will air an afternoon whip-around show (a la NFL Red Zone or the streamer’s Olympic Gold Zone; maybe call it Strike Zone?) with highlights and live cut-ins to other games. On July 5, 2026, NBC Sports will feature all 15 MLB games taking place that day, with a Sunday Leadoff telecast, every afternoon game on Peacock and Sunday Night Baseball. All Peacock-exclusive games throughout the season will also air on NBCSN.
NBC will also carry exclusive primetime games on opening day and Labor Day each season.
