MLB today announced new media rights agreements with ESPN, NBCUniversal, and Netflix, and confirmed that, contrary to previous reports, Apple will continue to stream “Friday Night Baseball”. Here are the details.
Apple keeps ‘Friday Night Baseball’, but that’s it
Earlier this year, Yahoo Sports’ Kendall Baker reported that Apple had decided to end its relationship with Major League Baseball, which meant that not only would Apple not expand its streaming deal with the league, but the company would also end its Friday Night Baseball programming.
Baker went on to claim that, although things were still in motion and subject to change, Friday night games would likely move to NBC/Peacock, and that Netflix would expand its partnership with the league to stream Home Run Derby matches.
Today, however, MLB confirmed that “Friday Night Baseball” isn’t going anywhere:
“Apple TV will continue to stream ‘Friday Night Baseball’ doubleheaders throughout the regular season.”
The announcement came on a press release detailing new three-year media rights agreements with Netflix, NBCUniversal, and ESPN, which will be structured as follows:
“As part of the rights agreements, which cover the 2026-2028 MLB seasons, the league’s longstanding relationship with ESPN will reach 39 consecutive seasons, NBC will return to regularly airing games on its broadcast network for the first time in a quarter century, and Netflix’s engagement with MLB will expand from documentaries to live baseball event coverage for the first time.
Sunday Night Baseball will shift from ESPN, where it aired since 1990, to NBCUniversal, which also secured the rights to Sunday Leadoff and the Wild Card Series in the postseason for NBC and Peacock.
Netflix will now air the T-Mobile Home Run Derby, an Opening Night exclusive and special event games set to include the 2026 MLB at Field of Dreams Game and the World Baseball Classic in Japan.
And ESPN will receive a national midweek game package throughout the season while also acquiring the rights to sell MLB.TV, the league’s out-of-market streaming service that set a record with 19.4 billion minutes watched in 2025.”
In essence, today’s announcement puts any significant expansion of Apple’s baseball streaming rights out of reach for at least the next few years, contrasting with reports earlier in the year that put Apple as one of the contenders for the new MLB media deals.
Still, Apple has been building momentum with sports for Apple TV, with the recent announcement of the US streaming rights to F1, as well as a revised agreement with MLS that will end MLS Season Pass and make games available for free to Apple TV subscribers.
Just recently, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Services, Eddy Cue, went on a press tour and discussed his (and Apple’s) vision for the future of sports streaming, which involves “more bundling,” as he said during a panel at Motorsport Network’s Autosport Business Exchange NYC.
Sadly, for Apple TV subscribers who are baseball fans, that future won’t involve more MLB games for the time being.
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