Baseball TV Updates: Netflix, Peacock, FanDuel Teams; Extra Innings

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

Major League Baseball’s regular season begins this week so I want to inform you of some notable news regarding where games will be televised (or not televised.)

Netflix Will Stream the Season Opener
Netflix’s three-year deal to stream select regular season MLB games begins on Wednesday, March 25 with the 2026 Opening Night game between the New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants from picturesque Oracle Park in San Francisco. Former ESPNer Elle Duncan will host the telecast and Netflix has signed former Giants HR king Barry Bonds to ‘juice’ up the in-game analysis. Netflix, which was once refused to embrace live television, has now done a few dozen live events so fears of technical snafus for game one should be minimal; the company seems to have figured it out. (Although you never know…)

Peacock Will Stream Three Games On Thursday
As part of NBC’s new partnership with MLB, NBC and Peacock will air/stream a doubleheader on Thursday: The Pirates (and Paul Skenes) at the Mets at 1 p.m. ET and the Diamondbacks at the Dodgers at 8 p.m. ET. Plus, Peacock will offer a third game on Thursday at 4 p.m. ET: Angels at Astros.

Ex-FanDuel Sports Teams Still Don’t Have TV Deals
The nine MLB teams (and Washington Nationals) that were previously on the financially failing FanDuel Sports Network still don’t have ‘official’ carriage deals with cable and satellite providers. However, as I have written here previously, expect the deals to be announced in the next few days. If your provider carried the team last year, chances are very good it will do so again this year. So don’t pay that $99 for the team’s streaming plan.

MLB Extra Innings Will Have a Free Preview
DIRECTV and other TV providers such as Comcast and Dish will once again air a free preview of the MLB Extra Innings out-of-market package. The freebie will start on Thursday, March 26 and run through Thursday, April 2.

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