DETROIT — After weeks of uncertainty following the Detroit Tigers’ split from FanDuel Sports Network, fans finally have clarity on how they’ll watch games this season.
The Tigers and Red Wings are launching a new joint streaming and broadcast platform called Detroit SportsNet, which will provide in-market fans access to both teams’ games under one subscription — $19.99 per month or $189 per year. Subscriptions go on sale Monday.
Tigers games will stream beginning Opening Day (March 26) through the MLB app under the Detroit SportsNet subscription. Red Wings games will join the platform starting with the 2026–27 NHL season.
There will be a brief overlap period in which Red Wings fans may still need FanDuel Sports Network to finish the current NHL season while subscribing to Detroit SportsNet for Tigers games.
The new broadcasts will be powered by MLB’s streaming technology, a move aimed at delivering a more reliable and seamless experience following fan complaints about the performance of the FanDuel Sports app.
As an incentive to sign up early, subscribers will not be billed until April 1 and will receive the first five regular-season Tigers games free. Spring training games remain available at no charge with an MLB login.
A separate linear television channel for Tigers games will be announced before Opening Day. The channel will not operate 24/7 but will focus primarily on live games, along with limited shoulder programming.
There are no changes to the broadcast talent. Jason Benetti and Dan Dickerson will continue handling play-by-play duties, with Dan Petry and Andy Dirks serving as primary analysts.
In practical terms, the viewing structure will look very similar to what fans are used to. In-market fans will still need a local subscription to watch games, whether through cable, satellite or streaming. Detroit SportsNet is expected to be widely available in cable and satellite packages throughout Michigan once distribution agreements are finalized, meaning fans who currently receive FanDuel Sports Network likely will not need to take any action.
The primary shift comes on the streaming side: instead of subscribing to FanDuel Sports Network, in-market fans will now stream through Detroit SportsNet, with Tigers games delivered via the MLB app.
For out-of-market fans, nothing changes — Tigers games will remain available through MLB.TV.
For Red Wings fans, details on the specific streaming app for the 2026–27 season are still to be announced. Team officials said the broadcast talent and production team will remain intact, and subscription pricing will mirror the current FanDuel streaming model. Additional details are expected later this summer.
The launch comes amid broader turmoil in the regional sports network industry. Main Street Sports Group, the parent company of the FanDuel Sports Network channels, has struggled financially following the 2023 bankruptcy of its predecessor, Diamond Sports Group. Mounting debt, cord-cutting losses and shrinking cable subscriber fees led to missed rights payments and prompted teams — including the Tigers and eight other MLB clubs — to terminate their contracts.
The issue is structural. The traditional regional sports network model relied on large numbers of cable subscribers paying bundled fees, whether they watched games or not. As more households shift to streaming, that revenue base has shrunk. In response, leagues are turning to centralized production and direct-to-consumer distribution — as MLB is doing with the Tigers — in an effort to stabilize local rights revenue while ensuring local fans can still easily watch games.
The uncertainty surrounding local television revenue is also expected to loom over MLB’s next round of labor negotiations, as teams such as the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers benefit from lucrative local TV deals while others scramble to replace declining RSN income.
That financial backdrop made the Tigers’ aggressive offseason spending notable, as the club boosted its payroll into MLB’s top 10 for the first time in nearly a decade.
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