Major League Baseball on NBC is an American presentation of Major League Baseball (MLB) games produced by NBC Sports, and televised on the NBC television network, its cable channel NBCSN and streaming service Peacock.
Major League Baseball games first aired on NBC from to , including The NBC Game of the Week, when CBS acquired the broadcast television rights.
Games returned to NBC in as part of The Baseball Network, a time-brokered package of broadcasts produced by Major League Baseball and split with ABC. After The Baseball Network folded after the 1995 season, NBC retained a smaller package through 2000, alternating rights to a package of postseason games with Fox (with NBC carrying the National League Championship Series and World Series in odd-numbered years, and the American League Championship Series and All-Star Game in even-numbered years).
The Comcast SportsNet regional sports networks became part of NBC Sports after Comcast acquired NBCUniversal in 2011; they currently hold rights to the Athletics, Philadelphia Phillies, and San Francisco Giants.
For the first time since 2000, regular season baseball returned to NBC in 2022 after the network agreed to a deal with the league for MLB Sunday Leadoff. One game per season would air on NBC, with the remainder of the games on the streaming service Peacock. This deal was short lived, with the contract ending after the 2023 season.
Major League Baseball announced a new national media rights agreement with NBC covering broadcasts and streaming from 2026 to 2028. The deal includes NBC taking over broadcasts of Sunday Night Baseball and the Wild Card round from ESPN, with the return of MLB Sunday Leadoff to Peacock starting March 26, 2026.
History
From 1947 to 1956 and again in 1965, NBC only aired the All-Star Game (beginning in 1950) and World Series. From 1957 to 1989, NBC aired the Saturday afternoon Game of the Week (or a variation of it prior to 1966, when NBC did not hold the exclusive over-the-air television rights). From 1994 to 1995, NBC aired games under a joint broadcasting venture with Major League Baseball and ABC called The Baseball Network. From 1996 to 2000, NBC's league coverage was reduced to postseason games (three Division Series games in prime time, the American League Championship Series in even-numbered years, and the National League Championship Series and World Series in odd-numbered years), as well as the All-Star Game in even-numbered years (during years when NBC did not hold the rights to the World Series).
Attempted bid for 2007–13 A June 4, 2006 Broadcasting & Cable article stated that Fox may have considered a partnership with another network (which ultimately, turned out to be TBS) for the next contract. NBC was the only network named in connection to a possible partnership in the article. The setup being suggested was similar to the last time NBC had the rights to baseball, that being NBC would get the rights to some League Championship Series games and alternate rights to the World Series and All-Star Game with Fox, which may or may not have kept the Game of the Week. After weeks of speculation and rumors, on July 11, 2006, at the All-Star Game, Major League Baseball announced a renewal of its existing current with Fox Sports through 2013, allowing Fox to retain exclusive television rights to the World Series and the All-Star Game (the World Series would begin the Wednesday after the League Championship Series are completed). The deal also allowed Fox to retain the Saturday Game of the Week and gave it broadcast rights to one League Championship Series annually. This ruled out baseball returning to NBC, as the two annual showpiece events were not available in any contract NBC might obtain before then.
OLN (later NBCSN) briefly considered acquiring the rights to the Sunday and Wednesday games, which expired after the 2005 season. However, on September 14, 2005, existing rightsholder ESPN signed an eight-year contract with the league, highlighted by the continuation of ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball with additional, exclusive team appearances. Currently, NBCUniversal parent Comcast owns 5.44% of the MLB Network and featured a New York Mets–San Francisco Giants game with Bob Costas and Al Michaels (who while working for the Cincinnati Reds had previously helped call the 1972 World Series for NBC and from 2006-2021, served as the play-by-play voice for NBC's Sunday Night Football telecasts) in July 2011.
The New York Times, however, reported that it was unlikely that NBC would get baseball, as NBC would have had to preempt up to three weeks of NFL coverage on Sunday nights. However, the NFL used to not schedule a Sunday night game on the second night of the World Series, which meant that NBC gaining the rights was not completely out of the question (however, the following Sunday, in which a possible World Series Game 7 was scheduled, a Sunday night NFL game was also scheduled). In addition to this, other Sunday playoff games, such as the ALCS and NLCS could be pushed to the afternoon. This might not have been appetizing to league officials, as major playoff games would have gone up head-to-head against highly rated afternoon NFL games (as opposed to today's system, in which only one game out of two for the day would go up against network NFL broadcasts).
Attempted bid for 2014–21 During the summer of 2012, NBC Sports was reportedly involved in negotiations for a television contract with Major League Baseball. NBCSN was expected to play a large part in NBC's bid. However, it was likely that NBC would want either marquee event (All-Star Game and World Series) to air on the broadcast network rather than cable. This could have potentially conflicted with NBC's broadcasts of Sunday Night Football, which has generally had a game or two scheduled on nights when a World Series game is held since 2010; however, prior to this, no game was scheduled on these nights so it would not have been unprecedented. Besides the potential conflicts with Sunday Night Football, another disadvantage for NBCSN is that it was available in fewer than 80 million homes, trailing the national reach of both Fox Sports 1 and TBS.
On August 28, 2012, Major League Baseball and ESPN agreed to an eight-year, $5.6 billion contract extension, the largest broadcasting deal in Major League Baseball history. It gave ESPN the rights to up to 90 regular-season games, alternating rights to one of the two Wild Card games (between American League and National League teams) each year, and the rights to all regular-season tiebreaker games. On September 19, 2012, Sports Business Daily reported that the league would agree to separate eight-year television deals with Fox Sports and Turner Sports through the 2021 season. On October 2, 2012, the new deal between Major League Baseball and TBS was officially confirmed; NBC looked to be left without a package, because though it made an offer, Major League Baseball did not consider NBC a serious bidder after the ESPN deal was made public. Sources said that NBC did not make a strong offer, and that it was most interested in ESPN's package, which included exclusivity on Sunday night and rights to the two mid-week games. When ESPN took that package, NBC's interest waned.
MLB Sunday Leadoff on Peacock (2022–2023)
On June 14, 2021, NBC Sports announced that it would stream the Philadelphia Phillies and San Francisco Giants' June 18–20 series exclusively for free on NBCUniversal's streaming service Peacock. The local rights to both teams are owned by the NBC Sports Regional Networks, and the games featured a mixture of personnel from the teams' broadcasts on NBC Sports Bay Area and NBC Sports Philadelphia: the commentary team featured the Giants' Jon Miller on play-by-play, with his partner Mike Krukow, and the Phillies' John Kruk and Jimmy Rollins, serving as analysts.
Peacock would ultimately acquire a new package of 18 Sunday afternoon games from each participating team, beginning in the 2022 Major League Baseball season, branded as MLB Sunday Leadoff. Peacock's first game aired on May 8 between the Chicago White Sox and Boston Red Sox, and was also simulcast on the NBC broadcast network (marking its first MLB broadcast since 2000). It also had officially been 7,873 days since NBC last televised a Major League Baseball game.
The agreement also included rights to the All-Star Futures Game, and an MLB content hub on Peacock with classic games and other content.
The contract ended following the 2023 season and would move to The Roku Channel in 2024.
2026–28 agreement In 2025, reports emerged that NBC was involved in negotiations for the broadcast rights to Sunday Night Baseball. ESPN opted out of its agreement to air the package in 2025. The package could include the broadcast rights to the Wild Card Series, which ESPN also previously aired. On November 13, 2025, NBCUniversal announced that they would relaunch NBCSN beginning on November 17. As part of the announcement, NBC hinted towards acquiring the rights to "dozens" of MLB regular season and playoff games in a "soon-to-be-announced agreement".
The agreement was officially announced on November 19, 2025. Through the agreement, NBC acquires: 25 Sunday Night Baseball games per season. When available, games will air on NBC, otherwise, games will air on Peacock and NBCSN. 18 MLB Sunday Leadoff games per season. Games will primarily air on Peacock and NBCSN, with select games airing on NBC All games from the Wild Card Series round on NBC, Peacock, and NBCSN Yearly Opening Day games on NBC. Daily out-of-market games on Peacock An annual "roadblock" event where all games played that day are exclusive to NBC Sports. Coverage of the MLB draft and the All-Star Futures Game on NBC and Peacock A Sunday afternoon whiparound show on Peacock following MLB Sunday Leadoff (and on the final day of the season when no games will nationally air in 2026) A yearly special event game beginning in 2027; on August 14, 2026, it was announced that this game will be the MLB at Field of Dreams game in 2027, moving from Netflix. Beginning in 2027, NBC will air the final game of the regular season, airing the game with the strongest postseason implications. Spanish-language coverage on Universo.
NBC Sports announced its inaugural, 61-game Major League Baseball schedule on January 9, 2026, including two Opening Day games (an afternoon game featuring the Pittsburgh Pirates at the New York Mets, and a primetime game featuring the Arizona Diamondbacks against the Los Angeles Dodgers), and Sunday Night Baseball premiering on March 29 on Peacock/NBCSN.
The inaugural "roadblock" event, "Star-Spangled Sunday", was held on July 5, 2026, with all 15 games being national broadcasts streaming exclusively on Peacock. Aside from Sunday Leadoff and Sunday Night Baseball (which both aired on NBC), most of the games were produced by one of the regional rightsholders of the participating teams (including MLB Local Media, NBC Sports Regional Networks, and NESN) with portions of NBC Sports' on-air presentation, and in some cases used play-by-play and color commentators from both participating teams (similarly to the format used for Sunday Leadoff when it was produced by MLB for The Roku Channel). NBC Sports Bay Area, NBC Sports Philadelphia, and NESN were allowed to non-exclusively broadcast their games in-market.
Related coverage Major League Baseball on NBC Radio
For many years, the NBC Radio Network also had a role in Major League Baseball coverage. The network shared World Series broadcast rights with CBS beginning in 1927, with All-Star Game broadcasts added in 1933. The Mutual Broadcasting System joined NBC and CBS in 1935; the three networks continued to share coverage of baseball's "jewels" in this manner through 1938, with Mutual gaining exclusive rights to the World Series in 1939 and the All-Star Game in 1942.