MLB Gives Control Of MLB.tv To ESPN; Signs Deal With Peacock, Netflix

Major League Baseball announced today that they have reached media deals for the 2026-2028 season with NBC, ESPN, and Netflix. The story was first reported by Sports Business Journal and The Athletic.

ESPN

Back in February, ESPN opted out of its contract with MLB, ending its run of carrying “Sunday Night Baseball” on its network. Both sides made clear they wanted to rework the deal, not end it entirely. ESPN will now receive the rights to all 30 teams’ out-of-market games, rather than being on the MLB app. ESPN will also host 30 exclusive weeknight games during the regular season.

ESPN will also have the rights to six teams, Guardians, Padres, Twins, Diamondbacks, Rockies, and Mariners, with full media rights. MLB took over these rights beginning in the 2024 season after its regional sports networks were absorbed.

ESPN Radio will continue its coverage of “Sunday Night Baseball” and the World Series.

NBC/Peacock

NBC has officially completed its quest to conquer the Sports Day on Sunday. NBC now hosts the contracts of “Sunday Night Football”, “Sunday Night Basketball”, and now “Sunday Night Baseball”. NBC confirmed to The Athletic that the NFL and NBA will receive priority, and when those games are on, MLB games will be featured on Peacock. All MLB games on NBC will also be simulcast on Peacock for those without cable.

NBC’s first game will take place on the second night of the MLB season from Chavez Ravine as the World Champion Dodgers will hoist their second consecutive banner before taking on the division rival Diamondbacks. The Wild Card round of the postseason will also be featured on NBC, after previously being on ESPN.

Peacock will also feature Sunday morning games, which it did prior to the 2024 season, when Roku took over the contract.

Netflix

Netflix will be getting specialty games and events as part of its first contract with MLB. The 2025 season will open on Netflix with “MLB Opening Night” from the Bay Area, featuring the New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants. Netflix will also receive the “Field of Dreams” game, making a return for the first time since 2022, featuring the Philadelphia Phillies and Minnesota Twins. The Home Run Derby will also make the transition to Netflix, which should be a nice change of pace from ESPN.

Long-term Impact on Baseball

The new media deal will be one of the biggest broadcast restructuring deals in MLB history, with a long-term impact. Commissioner Manfred has been very open about wanting to absorb the media rights deals of every team in the league. With ESPN taking over the six teams under MLB control, that is the first step towards achieving that goal. ESPN hosting these contracts is a pilot for things to come, and could be a good thing for smaller markets.

Using a major platform like ESPN, which already has a following and its own promotion, will allow MLB to see how this works and potentially allow smaller-market teams to earn more revenue from this TV rights deal. Currently, the small-market teams don’t earn much from their TV rights deals because they don’t own them, as the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Mets, among others, do. The teams that own their RSNs get the direct revenue from viewership and subscriptions, while the small-market teams have to pay out and get very little revenue back. Manfred’s plan to move away from the RSNs entirely and host the new TV deals on a platform like ESPN would eliminate this disparity, and it would be the first step.