Do You Need a Roku to Watch Roku’s Sunday Baseball?

By Phillip Swann
The TV Answer Man –Follow me on X.

TV Answer Man, I can’t believe that Major League Baseball is making us get a Roku to watch the Sunday morning games! More money, more money! What are they thinking? Not about us, obviously! — Jen, Roanoke, Virginia. 

Jen, Roku and Major League Baseball announced yesterday that Roku will begin exclusively streaming free Sunday games on May 19 with a Boston Red Sox-St. Louis Cardinals matchup at 1:05 p.m. ET. There will be 18 games on Roku this season with a mix of afternoon and morning contests. (See the schedule below.)

After the announcement, I soon began receiving complaints from readers that MLB is forcing fans to buy a Roku streaming device to watch the games. However, that is not the case. The games will be available on The Roku Channel, a free streaming channel available on Roku devices, Amazon’s Fire TV devices, Google TVs and Samsung TVs. You can watch the games on any of those devices, although the list does not include Apple TV.

In addition, The Roku Channel is available on the web at TheRokuChannel.com. So you will be able to watch the Roku games with any steaming or mobile device or computer that can access the Internet. In most cases, you should also be able to cast the stream to your TV. (The games will also be available to MLB TV subscribers.)

Bottom line: The Roku MLB games will not only be free, watching them will not require you to purchase a device. That is, unless you currently don’t have something that can access the Internet.

Here is a schedule of Roku MLB contests:

Jen, hope that helps. Happy viewing and stay safe!

Have a question about new TV technologies? Send it to The TV Answer Man at swann@tvanswerman.com Please include your first name and hometown in your message.

The TV Answer Man is veteran journalist Phillip Swann who has covered the TV technology scene for more than three decades. He will report on the latest news and answer your questions regarding new devices and services that are changing the way you watch television. See the bio for Phillip Swann here.