KANSAS CITY -- A new way to watch Royals baseball is here.
The Royals announced Monday that their games will be produced and distributed by Major League Baseball on Royals.TV for the 2026 season. It was a move that was hinted at by president of business operations Cullen Maxey this past weekend at Royals Rally after the club terminated its contract with Main Street Sports Group, the parent company of FanDuel Sports Kansas City, last month.
The Royals were hopeful that Main Street/FanDuel would find a merger partner to help with their financial pressures, but by Monday, Kansas City had decided to move platforms and partner with MLB for its broadcasts. The club had worked for close to two months on having MLB as a backup in case it had to pivot.
Now, Kansas City games will be available on cable and satellite, as well as the MLB app. The MLB app is available to stream on a variety of devices. The Royals are one of a growing group of teams to have an MLB-distributed broadcast.
Fans who live inside the Royals' home television territory can purchase a Royals.TV in-market streaming package through MLB.com or the MLB app for $19.99 per month or $99.99 per year. Subscriptions for the 2026 season will be available later this month, before Spring Training games begin on Feb. 20.
Here is a full FAQ about this year’s broadcast plan.
“We thank FanDuel and their parent company, Main Street Sports, for everything they’ve done,” Maxey said Monday. “They’ve been a partner for a while, most recently as they have come out of bankruptcy, and they helped us expand our reach across our TV territory into Nebraska and Iowa, obviously Missouri and Kansas [and] Arkansas, as well as launch a direct-to-consumer effort that went really well. We do thank them for their partnership, wish them well in the future, but we are excited about moving over to Major League Baseball. They have built a team to support local teams and their network efforts. They’ve got all the relationships we need.”
The in-market streaming package will not have any blackout restrictions for Royals games. However, it’s important to note that Royals.TV subscribers who travel outside the Royals' home territory are still subject to other teams’ blackout restrictions. For example, if a Royals.TV subscriber travels to New York, a Royals vs. Mets game would be blacked out. It wouldn’t be blacked out if that subscriber was located in Kansas City home territory.
The only games not available on Royals.TV for in-market subscribers will be national exclusives.
Royals.TV will also be available through cable and satellite distributors like FanDuel Sports Kansas City was in previous years. Specific cable and satellite distributors and exact channel locations will be announced closer to the start of the regular season. The team said it expects channel locations to be located near other sports programming on channel guides, and Maxey expects Spectrum and DirecTV to be partners again in distributing games. Other distributors have yet to be determined.
The Royals also again expect select games this season to be broadcast as a free over-the-air option, the second consecutive year that a handful of games will air on KCTV (Channel 5) and KSMO-TV in Kansas City. There will be 10 regular-season games broadcast across Gray Media stations, including the Royals' home opener against the Twins on March 30. The full schedule of those games can be found here.
Out-of-market fans can watch Royals games with an MLB.TV subscription for $149.99 per year. This package is designated as an out-of-market package for fans who live outside of their team’s home territory. If you are a Royals fan living in Royals territory, you won’t be able to watch Kansas City games with a standard MLB.TV package -- you must have a Royals.TV subscription.
Royals games will continue to be called by play-by-play announcers Ryan Lefebvre and Jake Eisenberg, with Rex Hudler and Jeremy Guthrie as analysts and Joel Goldberg and Jeff Montgomery on pre- and post-game coverage.
Maxey noted that MLB has been the pioneer in sports streaming and that teams that have moved to MLB-produced broadcasts have seen better quality as well as expanded reach in some cases. There’s more of an opportunity to experiment with new technologies, like base cameras, drone footage and likely new technology associated with the ABS challenge system coming to MLB this season.
“I really think because baseball is in their DNA,” Maxey said. “And they have hired some top-notch directors and producers from the past. It’s a very similar staff. It’s basically the same production staff that does everything. They just bring some more investment to it, and the eye for baseball on how to produce those games. I think it’ll be noticed, and in addition to the technology that makes it pretty neat.”