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.
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.
“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.
No ESPN, no toady Chris Berman back back back back HR calls. What to do what to do