MLB reportedly plans to open next season with back-to-back standalone, primetime games on its two new broadcast partners.
John Ourand of Puck reported Thursday that NBC and Peacock will air a primetime Major League Baseball game on the second night of next season, which is Thursday, March 26. While there are 14 games scheduled for that day, the NBC/Peacock game would be the only one in its primetime window.
MLB announced last month that it will begin its season with a solo standalone game between the Yankees and Giants on Wednesday, March 25. According to Andrew Marchand of The Athletic, that game will air on Netflix.
Per Ourand, NBC’s primetime game is a consolation prize for losing that Opening Night matchup, which was originally slated to be included in the NBC package. The Opening Night game was itself a consolation prize for Netflix after MLB elected to award the Wild Card playoff round to NBC, according to Ourand, whose report would seem to be the first indication that Netflix had interest in the Wild Card games.
All of the rights earmarked for NBCUniversal and Netflix are part of the package ESPN opted out of in February. “Sunday Night Baseball” and Wild Card playoff games are expected to move to NBCUniversal, while the Home Run Derby is believed to be heading to Netflix. Ourand wrote Thursday that an official announcement of the NBC and Netflix deals should be made “in the next couple of weeks.” Taken literally, that would put an announcement a few days before the start of the World Series.
It is not clear whether MLB’s expected deal with ESPN, which is an entirely new package consisting of rights MLB has not previously sold, would be announced at the same time.
The March 26 game would be just the third Major League Baseball game on the NBC broadcast network in the past 25 years. When Peacock held rights to the MLB Sunday morning package in 2022 and 2023, NBC simulcast one game each season. Other than that, the network has not carried any MLB since Game 6 of the 2000 American League Championship Series.
