DIRECTV ‘Anticipates’ Adding Nationals, Ex-FanDuel Teams By Opening Day

By Phillip Swann
The TV Answer Man – Buy Me a Coffee!

TV Answer Man, can you tell me when or IF DIRECTV will have the Washington Nationals channel? We are missing spring training games!!! – Steve, Fairfax, Virginia.

Steve, as you may know, the Washington Nationals are no longer on MASN, the regional sports network (RSN) in the Washington-Baltimore market. Instead, the team partnered with Major League Baseball to stream its games on Nationals.TV.

Nine other teams (Braves, Reds, Tigers, Royals, Marlins, Angels, Brewers, Rays and Cardinals) have exited their agreements with the financial crippled FanDuel Sports Network and will also be streamed on team.tv channels via MLB TV.

DIRECTV, and several other TV providers which carried those teams in 2025, do not have carriage agreements with MLB for them in 2026. However, we have predicted that the deals will come by Opening Day in late March. (Read our article on why it will take that long.) And DIRECTV is now telling The TV Answer Man that it does ‘anticipate’ adding the Nationals and the other ex-FanDuel teams by then.

“We’ve been the first distributor to offer all the prior MLB team channels (Padres, Diamondbacks, Rockies, Guardians, Twins) and anticipate having the MLB teams on the league channels in time for Opening Day,” a DIRECTV spokesman told The TV Answer Man via e-mail.

On DIRECTV’s web site, the TV provider even has a channel ‘to be determined’ designation for the nine FanDuel teams and the Nationals. You can see it here.

So, Steve, be patient. The Nationals are coming to DIRECTV. You will just have to wait a bit.

Hope that answers your question. Happy viewing and stay safe!

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