Major League Baseball has officially struck a deal with Roku to carry its package of Sunday morning and early afternoon games.
MLB and Roku have entered into a multi-year media rights agreement in which The Roku Channel will carry the “Sunday Leadoff” package of morning and afternoon games previously owned by Peacock, it was announced Monday. Roku will carry 18 games this season, starting with Red Sox-Cardinals this coming Sunday and ending with Reds-Twins on September 15. News of the deal was first reported by Andrew Marchand of The Athletic.
Roku is best known for its streaming video players — through which users can download apps such as ESPN, Netflix or YouTube TV — but it also provides content through The Roku Channel, which is free to watch without a subscription or Roku device.
The Sunday Leadoff games will continue to air primarily in the morning or early afternoon, with ten of the 18 scheduled for 11:35 AM or 12:05 PM ET. With no other games slated to begin before 1:30 PM ET, the Roku game will in most weeks have a 90-minute or two-hour window of exclusivity in which it is the only one being played. As was the case with Peacock, the games will be exclusive to Roku, with no local RSN broadcast.
In a shift, six games will have a more traditional 1:05 PM ET start and two will air in the late afternoon — 4:10 PM ET.
Unlike the Peacock games, which were produced by NBC Sports and had a consistent host and play-by-play voice, the Roku games will be produced by Major League Baseball and rely on talent provided by the participating teams. Chip Caray and Alexa Datt of the Cardinals will work with Red Sox analyst Will Middlebrooks for this week’s game.
As of late Monday, it was not clear how much Roku is paying for the Sunday games. Previous rightsholder Comcast paid $30 million/year and per Marchand had been seeking to cut that fee to $10 million.
