On the heels of a 2025 season that saw large viewership increases -- including the most watched postseason in eight years and a World Series Game 7 that was the most watched Major League Baseball game in 34 years -- MLB announced Wednesday that it has formed new three-year media rights agreements with Netflix, NBCUniversal and ESPN.
As part of the rights agreements, which cover the 2026-2028 MLB seasons, the league’s longstanding relationship with ESPN will reach 39 consecutive seasons, NBC will return to regularly airing games on its broadcast network for the first time in a quarter century, and Netflix’s engagement with MLB will expand from documentaries to live baseball event coverage for the first time.
Sunday Night Baseball will shift from ESPN, where it aired since 1990, to NBCUniversal, which also secured the rights to Sunday Leadoff and the Wild Card Series in the postseason for NBC and Peacock.
Netflix will now air the T-Mobile Home Run Derby, an Opening Night exclusive and special event games set to include the 2026 MLB at Field of Dreams Game and the World Baseball Classic in Japan.
And ESPN will receive a national midweek game package throughout the season while also acquiring the rights to sell MLB.TV, the league’s out-of-market streaming service that set a record with 19.4 billion minutes watched in 2025.
“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,” said Commissioner Robert D. Manfred, Jr. “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.”
Several elements of MLB’s national broadcast rights will remain unchanged.
FOX/FS1 will continue to be the home of the All-Star Game and regular season games, as well as the World Series, League Championship Series and Division Series presented by Booking.com. TBS will continue to house LCS and Division Series telecasts, plus regular season games on Tuesday nights. Apple TV will continue to stream "Friday Night Baseball" doubleheaders throughout the regular season.
Here’s more on each of the three new media rights agreements:
Netflix
MLB and Netflix have previously collaborated on globally distributed documentaries, including the Emmy Award-winning “The Turnaround” and “The Comeback: 2004 Boston Red Sox,” both from 2024. There was also “The Clubhouse,” an eight-part docuseries that went behind the scenes with the 2024 Red Sox.
Now, as the streaming giant continues to branch out into more live sporting events, Netflix is bringing game action to its service, which has more than 90 million subscribers in the U.S. and Canada and over 300 million globally.
Netflix will open the MLB season the next three years with a single game on Opening Night, the evening prior to a full schedule of traditional Opening Day games. In 2026, the Opening Night game will pit Aaron Judge and the Yankees against Rafael Devers and the Giants on Wednesday, March 25.
The T-Mobile Home Run Derby, the most-watched skills competition in sports, will move from ESPN to Netflix in 2026. It will continue to take place the day prior to the All-Star Game, which in 2026 will be held at Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park.
Netflix will also stream an additional MLB special event game each year of the deal. In 2026, that will be the MLB at Field of Dreams game, live from Dyersville, Iowa, on Aug. 13. The return to the site of the iconic movie set will feature the Twins vs. the Phillies.
Those live events will all be produced by MLB Network’s Emmy Award-winning production team, in partnership with Netflix’s team.
And as previously announced in August, Netflix will also exclusively deliver, live and on-demand, all 47 games of the 2026 World Baseball Classic to its audience in Japan.
“We are incredibly thankful for our partnership with Major League Baseball,” said Bela Bajaria, Chief Content Officer, Netflix. “We started with critically-acclaimed documentaries, deepening the existing global passion for baseball. Now, we are seizing that moment by bringing massive cultural spectacles -- from Opening Night to the Home Run Derby -- directly to our members, reinforcing Netflix as the ultimate home for both the story and the sport.”
NBCUniversal
Way back on Aug. 26, 1939, Red Barber called a doubleheader between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Cincinnati Reds that aired on W2XBS – an experimental New York City TV station that would ultimately become NBC’s flagship station, WNBC. It was the first ever MLB television broadcast.
NBC and MLB went on to have broadcasting partnerships from 1947 to 1989 and from 1994 to 2000, with NBC broadcasting a number of World Series, All-Star Games and Games of the Week.
This new deal reunites the two institutions, with NBC taking over the Sunday Night Baseball broadcasts from ESPN. In 2025, ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball game coverage recorded its best season since 2013, with an average viewing audience of 1.8 million viewers, a 21% increase over last year’s total.
The Sunday night game will air on Peacock (NBCUniversal’s streaming service) and NBCSN (NBC Sports’ new cable network) during weeks in which there is overlap with previously negotiated media rights deals on NBC.
NBC will also air the Wild Card Series and select special event games, including primetime matchups on Opening Day and Labor Day. In 2026, NBC’s first game will be a primetime Opening Day matchup between the Diamondbacks and two-time defending World Series champion Dodgers.
NBC will also have a presence during All-Star Week. The MLB Draft will move to the Saturday of All-Star Week where NBC and Peacock will present the first hour of the event. Peacock/NBCSN and MLB Network will carry the remainder of Day 1. NBC and Peacock also will present the Futures Game, a game featuring baseball’s future stars who are the top players in Minor League Baseball on All-Star Sunday. That game will be followed by a new event that will feature former players and celebrities which will be streamed on Peacock.
Peacock will regain rights to MLB’s Sunday Leadoff game, which it carried for the 2022-2023 seasons. Sunday Leadoff will be a package of 18 games that start prior to or around noon ET on Sundays. That will be followed by MLB Network-produced studio coverage of the full day of games, and then Sunday Night Baseball on NBC or Peacock.
The Peacock service will also regularly feature a game of the day, which will be available to fans outside the markets of the clubs competing.
“We are excited to welcome Major League Baseball back to the NBC Sports family as we showcase the best in the game with Sunday Night Baseball on NBC, NBCSN and Peacock, the first game of the day on most Sunday mornings exclusively on Peacock and NBCSN, and the full Wild Card round across NBC, NBCSN and Peacock,” said Rick Cordella, President, NBC Sports. “We can’t wait for the first pitch in primetime on March 26 … and what a way to start with the champion Los Angeles Dodgers’ opener following their thrilling World Series victory!”
ESPN
MLB and the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” have a partnership that dates back to 1990, and it will continue under this deal.
Fans will now be able to purchase MLB.TV through ESPN to watch their favorite teams outside their home territory. ESPN is incorporating a service to its streaming platform that saw a viewership increase of 34% in 2025.
During the term of the agreement, ESPN will be able to offer fans in-market games for the select MLB teams whose games are being produced and distributed by the league through the ESPN app. Fans will have the ability to purchase these subscriptions either independently, as part of a bundle with MLB.TV, or as part of a package with ESPN’s app. For the 2026 season, the local in-market streaming products will continue to be available through MLB’s platforms.
Note that MLB Network will continue to be available to fans purchasing an MLB.TV subscription and will remain available to fans through linear packages and a standalone direct-to-consumer offering.
Additionally, ESPN will have a national midweek game package throughout the season, available exclusively on its linear networks and the ESPN app.
“This fan-friendly, forward-thinking agreement allows us to showcase this great sport on a local and national level, while prioritizing our streaming future,” said Jimmy Pitaro, Chairman, ESPN. “MLB.TV is a coveted, must-have service for passionate MLB fans all over the country, and it will be strongly complemented by our national game package and in-market team rights.”
MLB saw double-digit viewership increases across its national partners in audiences in the 17-and-under and 18-34-year-old categories in 2025. That was part of viewership increases across all of the league’s national television partners, locally on regional sports networks, streaming on MLB.TV and in Japan.