Netflix will have exclusive streaming coverage of next season’s Opening Night matchup between the Yankees and Giants, reports Andrew Marchand of The Athletic. Those teams will kick off the season with a standalone game at Oracle Park on Wednesday, March 25. Everyone else’s season will begin the following day, aligning with MLB’s usual practice of opening on the final Thursday in March.
That’s not the only significant get for Netflix. Marchand reports that the streaming corporation will also get the Home Run Derby for the next three seasons and share broadcasts of a few special location games (e.g. Field of Dreams, Rickwood Field) with NBC. Netflix and MLB are signing a three-year deal which Marchand reports will pay the league roughly $225-250MM annually.
Opening Night and the Home Run Derby were previously part of MLB’s long-running deal with ESPN. That collapsed in February when both sides opted out of the contract for the 2026-28 seasons. ESPN sought to renegotiate at a lesser rights fee. MLB instead partitioned the package — which included the Derby, Sunday Night Baseball, and the Wild Card round — and has hammered out a few smaller deals with different companies.
Marchand reported last month that Netflix was making a bid for the Derby, and they’ve apparently reached that agreement. He adds today that NBC and its streaming service Peacock will pick up Sunday Night Baseball and the Wild Card round from 2026-28. (ESPN will still have next week’s first round as part of the final season of the previous agreement.) NBC is also expected to pay around $225-250MM per season on a three-year contract.
There’ll also be a change to the regular season games on Sunday mornings. Roku has carried those since early 2024. Rob Tornoe of The Philadelphia Inquirer reported last month that NBC, which had carried those games on Peacock from 2022-23, would reacquire those rights. Roku’s deal ran through the end of 2026. It’s not clear if Peacock will pick those broadcasts up a year early or wait until the ’27 season.
ESPN will also remain a partner of the league on a much bigger deal. Marchand reported in August that the broadcaster was nearing agreement with MLB to license the rights to teams’ out-of-market games, which have been part of the MLB.tv package. ESPN also gets in-market rights for the Rockies, Twins, Diamondbacks, Padres and Guardians — the five clubs whose broadcasts have been handled by the league since their regional TV deals collapsed. ESPN also gets 30 exclusive national games to replace what it lost on Sunday nights; those games will now be on weekdays.
That’s also a three-year arrangement. Marchand reports that ESPN will pay the league $1.65 billion in total — matching the $550MM annual sum it would have paid for Sunday nights, the Derby, and the Wild Card round had it not opted out.
It’s not a coincidence that all these deals run through 2028. MLB’s preexisting contracts with Fox (which carries the World Series, the ALCS, the ALDS, and the All-Star Game) and Turner (which has the NLDS and NLCS) also expire at the end of the ’28 season. Commissioner Rob Manfred has expressed a desire to acquire the local in-market rights for every team by that point. That would give MLB the opportunity to shop virtually everything going into 2029.
ew…
Everyone calm down before your panties get in bunch and your pearls get clutched. It’s Netflix, relax you all have it on your TVs. It’s ok to be upset and nervous about the future, but just ask your son who helped you figure out your iPhone or ask your grandson to help you. Everything will be ok, technology is your friend, not your enemy, I know that seems hard to understand but, yes it’s gonna be ok. We are all in this together. Or actually you are all in this together, most normal people have Netflix.
Netflix, is that you?
I prefer to get my knickers in a twist, but please continue.
He’s mixing his similes, conjugating his metaphors
If you get your panties in bunch, save versus buying a la carte. Ex: tidy whideys $5 dollah. But 7 for $12.
“You all have phones, right?”
Uh, no. It’s not that it’s Netflix. It’s that it’s Netflix, AppleTV, ESPN, FOX, Peacock, etc.
If they allowed the local broadcast to remain in place for the local market, that would be more acceptable, but to require me to get additional streaming services to watch my local team…that’s pure crapola.
Red – So very true!
Tonight my favorite team will probably be clinching their first postseason berth in ages.
Do I want to watch it? Of course.
Will I sign up for Apple TV just to watch one or two of my team’s games a season? Hell no.
Fever, Apple is having a one month free trial.
dewey – Really? Thanks, I’ll check it out …. I’ve already done the 7-day free trial so not sure if I can do another.
redeem.services.apple/uberappletv?mt=6&at=10l…
Just posted the link. I’m setting mine up now.
They get you in that to start today it’s one week, to start 10/03, it’s a month. At least I’ll get the game tonight and cancel tomorrow.
We don’t all have it. I have cable still that costs a fortune, have high speed Internet that costs a fortune, MLB and Peacock without commercials. I will not spend another dime.
dewey – Why do you still have cable? I got rid of Xfinity a decade ago when they raised the price 62% while removing some of my favorite channels.
Xfinity/Comcast is losing tons of customers, with significant numbers of both broadband and cable subscribers departing because of price increases, lack of price transparency, and competition from alternative services. Xfinity/Comcast lost a notable number of broadband subscribers and the trend of customers cutting the cord on cable TV is ongoing.
Jacking up prices, that’s what happens when any business suffers significant losses, they jack up the prices for those that remain.
The triple play had been a great deal but they continue to raise the cost. I prefer cable but may soon change if wife is on board.
dewey – Yeah I totally understand being comfortable with what’s familiar, but your cable provider is gonna keep raising the prices so I guess it’s a matter of deciding if it’s worth the additional cost for you.
With ESPN dropping MLB I’m guessing cable won’t be as important to you.
Lol. I rarely watch ESPN. Their baseball coverage has been the worst. I have full sports for local (Knicks, Rangers, Islanders – yes both…) Mets and Yankees as well. I also have the Redzone which is fine as my Packers seem to be on TV half the time anyway. The greed though is killing the experience. Years ago, I bought the WWE Network to get the pay events. It became an amazing deal when they moved to Peacock. Peacock then kept raising the price but it was still worth it to me. Then Netflix bought Raw and ESPN got the PLEd. Now it will cost me $30 more a month? I realize it may save money for those who already subscribed and others may not mind for what they now get. For me though, it becomes a savings as I am cancelling Peacock in March. I also find Smackdown has too many commercials to enjoy the product. WWE is losing at least one long time fan (first time I went, I was in the nose bleed section as a seven year old complaining because I had binoculars and saw that Black Jack Mulligan fell down after getting an “air punch” from Andre the Giant – the punch wasn’t close and I was asking why he fell…).
Xfinity is awful. I wish i wasn’t forced to use their (non) service.
Nah, I watch the “free” streams like a smart person.
chapo – Your ageist comments would lead one to believe you’re about 14 years old, but I won’t make that assumption because stereotyping is pathetic anti-social behavior.
Who pays for your Netflix anyway, your parents?
I’ve never had Netflix for even one day.
Right you are. Most normal people do but what about people in nursing homes and assisted living centers, senior citizens who don’t have Netflix and don’t understand how to get it. Those are the people who are looking for anything to break up their mundane days. But don’t get your panties in a bunch because they’ll be dying off and MLB pulls in a few more million dollars. The only fans they care about are the ones writing them checks
CC Ryder/oldguy58 I thought it was Ohtani’s fault, not the fans?
@CC Ryder/oldguy58 I thought it was Ohtani’s fault, not the fans…
But it still sucks that MLB has spread ballgames to various streaming services when most fans will say ‘no” to paying for a string of unnecessary services.
As a Giants fan, I can still see Opening Day next year, but EVERY team’s home city should be able to see Opening Day without having to pay extra. Plus—as we’ve seen from AppleTV+—the announcers on those broadcasts are weak and hardly know the players.
Last week’s Kershaw special was particularly obnoxious, not that he isn’t a great player, but Dontrelle and Randazzo slobbered over him for 9 innings. THERE WAS A GAME GOING ON!
Now it’s seven different streaming services subs to watch ALL Yankees game next season. MLB dropping the ball and needs a nice round off to make it ten.
It’s only going to get worse in 2028 when the deals with Fox and Turner are up. Can’t wait to see games on HBO Max, Tubi, and Pluto!
Acoss – At least Tubi and Pluto are free!
Razor – I like my sitcoms, so I tend to watch Pluto periodically. Recently I’ve been catching up on the Cheers episodes, many of which I never saw or forgot.
Fever,
Forgot to add Fubo and Paramount Plus!
Acoss – Thanks, I didn’t know! I usually just search for stuff with my Roku TV and don’t pay attention to the channel I’m watching. LOL
I’m guessing Paramount is a lot of really old content?
Paramount has new South Park and Yellowstone with its spin offs. I don’t watch shows all that much nowadays so it’s useless to me. I like South Park but not enough to add yet another subscription.
And don’t get me started about Corncob TV, especially since ‘Coffin Flop’ was canceled.
You sure about that?
YBC – You can’t miss the season opener though …… Yanks vs Yankee Killer Raffy, must see TV!
Too bad Cole won’t be back by then ;O)
Hey did you make it to a game in Fenway like you were hoping a couple weeks ago?
Lol @FPG. I don’t sub to Netflix so will probably use a shady streaming site. I did make it to the Friday and Sunday Fenway night games. Good times!
YBC – Great, I’m sure you enjoyed Friday’s game anyways. LOL
“Commissioner Rob Manfred has expressed a desire to acquire the local in-market rights for every team by that point. That would give MLB the opportunity to shop virtually everything going into 2029”
The ending is the most vital piece to this whole story and they stuffed it. If Manfred gets what he wants, centralizing all the TV rights. The whole league will be flipped on it’s head. It will open the door to do exactly what the other major sports leagues have done. It doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Obviously there would be areas of good, like possibly some parity among franchises. However, it would be a huge shift that could have a lot of consequences for baseball. Beyond those shifts that will polarize fans, the centralizing revenues mimics what the NFL and NBA did. Unfortunately, this way has led to tons of league meddling with the product, a lot of which have arguably led fan interest to wane as the products face complaints of monotony.
True, this seemed like a classic case of burying the lede. The answer to whether MLB can pull this off is, of course, written in money. The owners of these in-market broadcasting rights will have to be compensated, and every rights owner is going to value them differently. The other devil in the details is how much such a comprehensive package of game programming will cost us fans. If anyone thinks it’s going to be the same or anywhere close to the same as the price of MLB.tv today, then think again. It also isn’t going to lead to more revenue parity between teams. MLB can do that whenever it wants to do it. They already have the system of revenue sharing they want. Nobody should delude themselves into believing otherwise.
I paid $200 this year for a YES sub. I don’t anticipate a price increase next seazon (never say never) but it’s continuous shrinkflation by the Steinbrenners and company who holds all the cards and control the pot.
Without pirate sites I would not be able to watch baseball.
@Razor I know it is but I pay for the convenience across all my devices.
It can’t be done like other leagues as it’s too late. Much of the big market club’s value is in the regional networks they own. LA Dodgers, the NY clubs, Boston, etc. are not giving up rights without a guarantee that they will always have financial advantages that I don’t see coming from the other clubs.
By financial advantage, I take it you mean the payments they are contracted to receive for the broadcast rights they sold. If so, I guess.
My point is these contracts are both complicated and large. Unwinding them before they expire and are available to be renewed is going to be a total hairball. The one Spectrum has with the Dodgers, for example, has more than ten years still to run (I believe) and probably well more than $3B remaining to be paid out.
Incidentally, approximately half of all media rights payments are pooled and shared among the 30 teams. MLB can share however much of this revenue as they decide to share. This is how much.
No ESPN, no toady Chris Berman back back back back HR calls. What to do what to do
Now we’ll get a Netflix production crew lol
They made a deal with the only thing worse than ESPN…
More stuff people can’t watch without paying extra. They think that will grow the game?
Robby the robot is an idiot.
Reds – Fans don’t matter, only money matters.
I think services like Netflix will soon realize their profits won’t go up because of this deal. People who don’t already have it aren’t going to pay for it just to watch a few MLB events.
Especially the HR Derby that typically has one or two players that most want to see. I’d watch the old game from LA Wrigley to see Judge vs. Raleigh but not the way it’s formatted today without real stars.
dewey – Yeah HR Derby is not that big a deal to me. It’s so repetitive, no different than watching batting practice.
Really only the ASG matters to me, but even that doesn’t matter as much as it used to.
Hopefully they can sign deals with a bunch of other streaming services as well.
Being able to watching everything on only one or two platforms would really suck.
Tool – So you’d rather pay for Apple, Peacock and Netflix instead of just MLB.TV which BTW is free with T-Mobile?
Doesn’t sound very logical.
How will Sunday Night baseball work once football starts? Or it will just end on Labor Day weekend?
That’s an easy one. MLB will probably appear on NBC starting in April and throughout the summer. When the NFL shows up MLB shifts to Peacock.
So these three deals pay the league about 1b a year. Though there is no breakdown on how much of the 550m annually espn is paying to the 5 in market teams. My guess is it’s more than they were making currently or why agree to it.
The whole all deals expire in 2028 so mlb can work to control all the rights will be interesting to watch. This likely means mlb will push for a salary cap and perhaps full revenue sharing. Though I see that as a big uphill battle to do either.
Even if they do just full revenue sharing that alone would act as somewhat of a leveling the playing field for teams payroll. Though the super rich owners could spend and lose money if they wanted to.
Teams like the dodgers being able to spend 500m on team payroll alone while the avg team is what just over 100m or so is ridiculous. Yes some teams could and should spend more than they currently do but let’s not act like they can spend close to 500m ever.
Other teams can also learn how to develop players instead of trying to be like the booveyman Dodgers.
But complaining about it ain’t gonna do a thing.
Just the facts, it’s not close to an even playing field
What does this mean for MLB.tv? This is how I watch each season.
Most likely higher prices for fewer games…
I think this will all become clearer after 2028. Right now, it is just positioning to get to that point. By that time, the work stoppage will be over and existing media deals will have expired. Maybe have a handle on local and streaming. At that point, a reset can take place. Right now, it’s kind of piece-meal.
“The work stoppage will be over…” in 2028?
You thought you were slick with that talking point. You weren’t.
Huh?
One question yet to be addressed is whether or not blackouts will disappear when/if MLB takes control of all game broadcasts. The fact that teams are blacked out for people hundreds of miles away from the ballpark remains idiotic and unnecessary. This is one thing MLB must clean up moving forward.
Who cares, Streameast will have every game for free
Well, they all got arrested and that got shut down, but yes there are alternatives.
Guess they didn’t have expressed written consent haha
Good news for all the 12 year olds that don’t have cable that actually still watch this crap
I dont like ESPN either but surely Netflix isnt the answer. lol.
The last baseball thing I watched was a friend throwing out the first pitch at Citi Field. Games are utterly unwatchable within minutes. The dumpires can’t get balls and strikes right. I’ve basically stopped watching all sports because of the officiating. Fix that and then tell me where I can watch a game. Give me swimming and track and field. I can tell who won and so can everyone else. Sure they’re all on god-knows-what but at least the officials don’t give the race to somebody who didn’t win. That comes after the failed drug tests. Sports? Don’t need them. Just beat the Yankees and I’m happy.
bro. why are you here? lol
MLB: Let’s make it even harder for everyone to watch the game.
I don’t understand why pirating streams are on the rise. All you need to watch baseball is MLB.tv, Apple TV, ESPN, TBS, Fox, NBC/Pecock, Netflix, and a regional sports package (some of which are solo subscriptions and some of which are only sold on top of a cable/fubo/whatever subscription). It’s so easy. Just pay for all those and keep track of all those logins and know which games are on which networks and you’re good to go!
You left Roku out.
I’ve been able to watch Roku games on MLB.tv, not really sure what their deal is but it doesn’t seem to be exclusive
Good point.
Maybe they think there are a lot of people who watch HGTV who aren’t aware that baseball exists but when they turn it on one day and a baseball game is showing, they won’t change the channel and they will get hooked on baseball.
We will not stay in our lane sir. We are planning to jump into the sports lane, and we are going to raise prices. We dare you to leave. You know you won’t. You are in OUR lane now.
I don’t have Netflix, and I never will. At least I got to see Big Dumper win my last derby.
The reality is that the owners own teams to make money and they will make decisions that benefit their bottom lines instead of benefit fans.
However–
There is a limit to how many services people will pay for, especially when those services only show a handful a games per year. Just as I would like to watch Sunday Morning football but won’t pay for the NFL network to see maybe 4 games a year, I”m not going to pay for Netflix or Apple TV or any other service to see a handful of games. I used to work for big corporations and often times people put together proposals that on paper look profitable but in the real world aren’t going to work, and I wonder if these MLB deals are in that category.
Keep going down this dumb path MLB and viewership will decline and Manford is to blame.
Back in my day you could see your favorite tm on your local channel with nothing but an antenna attached
These days tms have their own channels you need to pay for, or you gotta sign up for apple tv, espn, tbs, mlbtv, and now netflix
Yep, the good ol’ days. I remember when i lived in Arkansas not only did you get the typical Cubs on WGN and Braves on TBS but also the Rangers on cable on top of ESPN and the Cardinals on regular TV. Man i miss the 90’s…
Darth Manfred hoping to control the broadcast rights to all 30 teams will never happen. The Yankees/Cubs/Dodgers/Red Sox/Pirates/Mariners/Rangers/Blue Jays all own their own networks while the Phillies/White Sox/Giants all own part of the networks their games are broadcast on. I can’t see most or any of those teams relinquishing their broadcast rights and turning them over to Manfred
he just needs to end blackouts. I’m a Cubs in Ohio but yet somehow where I am is part of pirates territory some reason?
I’ve noticed odd blackout restrictions over cellur network that went away when switching to WiFi (I’m in California but couldn’t watch the Red Sox at the Astros til i switched to WiFi)
I was on wifi. I have MLB.tv and I can’t watch when we play pirates because MLB somehow thinks Columbus is on pirates territory lol
He cannot do this. Simply, cannot. Those in-market rights belong to the teams.
Orioles own MASN, too. Of course, without the Nationals tethered to it, the network is marginally less valuable. Besides the baseball, the rest of MASN programming is a wasteland.
So instead of SNB, WC, and HRD ESPN now gets every out of market game for the same price