Not to sound like the opening crawl of a “Star Wars” film, but it is a time of unrest and upheaval in the baseball broadcasting universe.
The 2023 bankruptcy of Diamond Sports Group thrust more than a third of Major League Baseball into television uncertainty. The Texas Rangers didn’t announce their 2025 TV package until two months ago; the Pittsburgh Pirates are broadcast on a station partially owned by the Boston Red Sox; and the Seattle Mariners are on a station other teams recently abandoned. A 36-year partnership with ESPN is entering its final season.
Local blackouts and disjointed national agreements have caused frustration and confusion, and existing contracts and local norms have stymied the league’s desire for a more unified presentation. All 2,430 regular-season games will be televised this year, but fans need the proper subscriptions, the right equipment and a detailed schedule to watch each one.
It’s enough to make you say, “My oh my!” and “Holy cow!” and “How about that?”
But we’re here to help. You’ll have to check local listings and individual schedules to find out which teams are on which platform on which night — there aren’t many gimmes; the Chicago Cubs haven’t been on WGN in five years — but we can help with the basics about how to access the various outlets you’ll need to watch every game.
How to watch nationally televised MLB games
With few exceptions — and MLB Network is one of them — national outlets override local broadcasts. That means any game picked up nationally will not be shown by local outlets. (Last June, Apple TV+ carried a high-profile matchup between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers and allowed the local outlets — YES Network and Spectrum SportsNet LA — to broadcast the game, but that was a rarity. The next two games of the series were exclusively on Fox and ESPN.) Generally speaking, if a game is nationally broadcast, it will not be available anywhere else.
Fubo
Fubo is a cable-cutter streaming platform that provides local and national channels and add-on sports packages. Any game on ESPN, Fox, or MLB Network can be streamed on Fubo. Games on TBS cannot. Fubo also carries regional sports networks (more on that below), including SportsNet, FanDuel Sports Network, Yes Network, MSG Sportsnet, NBC Sports and more. Most fans living in the region of the team they cheer for can find coverage on Fubo; however, there are exceptions. The LA Dodgers SportsNet LA, New York Mets SNY and Toronto Blue Jays coverage are available with an MLB.TV add-on — out-of-market only.
What you need to watch these games: First, you’ll need a Fubo subscription — you can try for free, here — which features the most MLB you can stream without cable. Most users can get away with the Pro plan for $84.99 a month. If you want 4K, the price increases to $94.99. For access to more games, there is the MLB.TV add-on, which streams every out-of-market game for $29.99 a month, and Sports Lite, which includes the MLB Network, NBA TV and the Tennis Channel for $9.99 a month.
ESPN
Together since 1990, ESPN and MLB announced in February that they had “mutually agreed” to end their partnership at the end of this season, but the partnership had been dwindling for some time now. ESPN now carries 30 regular-season games, most of which are a part of its iconic “Sunday Night Baseball” broadcast. ESPN also carries the Home Run Derby and the wild-card round of the playoffs. But the network once carried as many as 90 regular season games, and “Baseball Tonight,” an essential source of nightly news and highlights, hasn’t aired since 2017.
What you need to watch these games: ESPN is widely available through most television and satellite providers and multiple streaming platforms. It’s ESPN. If you want to find it, you’ll be able to.
Fox
With rights to the All-Star Game and the World Series and other high-profile events, Fox has become baseball’s premier national broadcasting partner. Fox carried the Tokyo Series earlier this month and the first game of the London Series two years ago. In August, Fox will broadcast the Speedway Classic — played at Bristol Motor Speedway — and carry three rivalry matchups between the Yankees and Red Sox during the regular season. Fox will also have the American League Championship Series in October. Fox’s regular season centerpiece is its Saturday broadcast, “Baseball Night in America.”
What you need to watch these games: The Fox broadcasts are split between its flagship station and its sports-focused FS1 channel. The broadcasts also stream through the Fox Sports app. Fox and FS1 are available through most television providers and major streaming services. Streaming on the Fox Sports app is available to Fox Sports subscribers.
TBS
As one of the first cable television superstations, Atlanta-based TBS has long been synonymous with baseball. It began broadcasting Atlanta Braves games in the 1970s. As cable television spread in the 1990s, the Braves became one of the best teams in the sport. The combination of access and success briefly made the Braves “America’s team.” TBS stopped broadcasting Braves games in 2007, but the station maintains weekly national broadcasts on Tuesdays (including the occasional Braves contest), which it calls, fittingly enough, “MLB Tuesday.” TBS carries 26 regular-season games and has broadcasting rights to this year’s NLDS and NLCS, making it a key broadcasting partner in the postseason.
What you need to watch these games: TBS is a staple of cable television and is available from multiple providers and streaming platforms. Broadcasts are also streamed through the TBS and Max apps (because Warner Bros. Discovery owns both TBS and HBO).
Roku
No longer just a thing you plug into your TV to watch Netflix, Roku launched its streaming channel in 2017 and, in 2024, secured a deal with MLB to broadcast Sunday games for free (to anyone with access to The Roku Channel). They call it the “MLB Sunday Leadoff,” and the broadcasts are blackout-free. Roku typically broadcasts Sunday’s first game of the day. (Leadoff. Get it?)
What you need to watch these games: The Roku Channel comes preinstalled on Roku devices, but it can also be accessed on some smart TVs and compatible Amazon Fire devices. There’s also a Roku mobile app and TheRokuChannel.com.
Apple TV+
Apple calls its weekly broadcast “Friday Night Baseball,” which is accurate but perhaps undersells its footprint. Apple TV+ carries a Friday doubleheader featuring two games every Friday for a total of roughly 50 games a year. As with most national broadcasts, this is not an all-teams-created-equal situation. Apple’s first-half Friday schedule has been announced, and the 28 matchups fail to include a single Athletics, Rockies, Marlins, or White Sox game.
What you need to watch these games: Apple products tend to come with Apple TV+ preinstalled, but the app still requires a subscription. The app is also available on Android devices and as an add-on via Amazon Prime Video. Some smart TVs and various streaming devices — like Roku — also have it. You might be able to snag a free trial, but a monthly subscription costs $9.99.
How to watch local broadcasts out-of-market
Other American sports leagues — especially the NBA and NFL — generate national interest from relatively casual fans. NFL broadcasts are exclusively national (meaning a Green Bay Packers game will be on television in a Florida sports bar), and the NBA — which plays basically half as many games as MLB — generates plenty of buzz for its premier regular-season matchups regardless of market. It’s not hard to imagine a casual LA Lakers fan also watching, for example, the Cleveland Cavaliers play the New York Knicks. But are Dodgers fans going out of their way to watch the Cleveland Guardians and New York Mets? Some will, certainly, but it’s the diehards who seek out mid-summer, out-of-market matchups. The league has those fans covered.
MLB Network
There is a game on MLB Network almost every day during the regular season — more than 275 games in all — totaling more than 10 percent of the MLB schedule. But each MLB Network broadcast is aired out-of-market only. Most days, MLB Network simply picks up the feed of a local broadcast. It will air a Padres vs. Giants game exactly as it would appear on the Padres’ home network, but that game won’t air on the MLB Network in San Diego or San Francisco. Those markets will get a different MLB Network game. There are also 26 MLB Network Showcase games unique to the network, with MLB Network’s production and broadcasters (like Matt Vasgersian, Dan Plesac and Tom Verducci) calling the action.
Although the Showcase games mirror a typical national broadcast, they do not override local broadcasts like ESPN or Fox would. The MLB Network might “Showcase” a Tarik Skubal vs. Cole Ragans matchup, but the game won’t air on the MLB Network in Detroit or Kansas City. The in-market broadcasts will remain with local stations.
What you need to watch these games: MLB Network is available through many television providers and streaming platforms, including Fubo. The network is also available via direct-to-consumer subscription. MLB.TV also grants access to MLB Network programming.
MLB.TV
Major League Baseball explains on its website — with liberal use of capital letters — that MLB.TV is the way to “watch every out-of-market game live or on demand.” Viewers can choose the home or away feed, and there’s an option for radio broadcasts, but a general subscription to MLB.TV is limited to out-of-market games, meaning fans in St. Louis — for example — can’t use MLB.TV to watch most Cardinals games. (There are in-market options for a few teams, which we’ll explain below.) In some cases, the blackout territory is massive. For the Mariners, it includes parts of five states: Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho and Alaska.
What you need to watch these games: MLB.TV can be streamed via computer or an app on television and mobile devices. All-team subscriptions are $149.99 per year or 29.99 per month (single-team packages are $129.99 annually). An MLB.TV subscription also allows streaming of MLB Network, minor-league games and “MLB Big Inning,” which follows multiple games with special attention to the biggest moments.
How to watch local broadcasts in-market
This is where it helps to focus on a single team and not worry about the fact that the Minnesota Twins do it differently than the Milwaukee Brewers, who aren’t quite the same as the Chicago White Sox, who are on a different channel than the Chicago Cubs, whose games aren’t necessarily available on the same platforms as the Philadelphia Phillies. Just pick your team and know where to find them.
MLB-owned, team-specific platforms
Teams: Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Guardians, Colorado Rockies, Minnesota Twins, San Diego Padres
In the fallout from recent regional sports network upheaval, these five teams are now broadcast through Major League Baseball itself, and each has its own streaming platform — Twins.TV, for example — available via subscription through MLB.TV but not subject to local blackouts (except when games are broadcast nationally).
What you need to watch these games: These platforms are available from MLB.TV, but they’re separate from the standard MLB.TV subscription. (An MLB.TV subscriber in Cleveland, for example, will still be blacked out from Guardians games without a subscription to CLEGaurdains.TV.) Subscriptions cost $19.99 monthly or $99.99 annually. The channels are also available on Fubo and other streaming and television providers. (If you’re a Spectrum subscriber in Lincoln, Nebraska, for example, you can find Rockies games on channel 435 or 445 or stream the Rockies through an outlet like Fubo.)
FanDuel Sports Network
Teams: Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, St. Louis Cardinals, Tampa Bay Rays
FanDuel Sports Network is basically a rebranded, slimmed-down version of Bally Sports, and it’s now owned by Main Street Sports Group (basically just a new name for the bankrupted Diamond Sports Group). In the wake of Diamond’s bankruptcy, the Reds and Brewers were initially slated to be broadcast by MLB, but each wound up signing new deals with FDSN.
What you need to watch these games: Subscriptions are available through various TV providers or direct-to-consumer through the FanDuel Sports Network app (available on the usual devices, including Roku, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV). Fubo also carries FDSN. The market-specific channels — FanDuel Sports Network Ohio, for example, carries the Reds — are also available as add-ons via Amazon Prime Video. Some FDSN teams (Braves, Tigers, Royals) will also simulcast a few games over-the-air.
NBC Sports
Teams: Athletics, Philadelphia Phillies, San Francisco Giants
NBC is better known for its coverage of the NFL, NBA, and Olympics, but there are still a handful of market-specific NBC Sports stations carrying Major League Baseball. The Athletics (NBC Sports California), Phillies (NBC Sports Philadelphia), and Giants (NBC Sports Bay Area) are all on NBC stations. The Phillies own part of their NBC Sports affiliate, and the Giants also own part of theirs.
What you need to watch these games: NBC Sports stations are available through various television and satellite providers. They’re also available on major streaming platforms (Fubo, YouTube TV, Hulu, DirectTV Stream) and the NBC Sports app. As of this year, the NBC Sports regional networks are also now available as add-ons through Peacock and team-specific subscriptions to MLB.TV.
Team-owned regional sports networks
Teams: Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Houston Astros, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees, Pittsburgh Pirates, Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers
Each of these teams has at least a partial (but substantial) ownership of its regional sports network. The networks themselves, though, tend to vary from place to place. NESN and YES Network are fixtures in Red Sox and Yankees territory. The Cubs might still be more nationally synonymous with WGN than with their own Marquee Sports Network (though they haven’t been on WGN since 2019). The Astros have been on Space City Home Network only since 2023; Chicago Sports Network (home of the White Sox, Chicago Blackhawks and Chicago Bulls) started in 2024; and the Rangers Sports Network just began in January. The Dodgers are on Spectrum SportsNet LA, which is not to be confused with Spectrum SportsNet, which carries the Lakers.
Among the quirkier RSN arrangements: SportsNet Pittsburgh is jointly owned by the Pirates and Pittsburgh Penguins — it broadcasts both — but the Penguins are owned by the same group that owns the Red Sox, which means the Pirates are broadcast on a station partially owned by the Red Sox (and much of the Pittsburgh station’s management is handled by NESN). The Mariners took full ownership of ROOT Sports Northwest in late 2023, and both the Portland Trail Blazers and Seattle Kraken have since left ROOT Sports to broadcast elsewhere.
What you need to watch these games: These RSNs are available from local television providers. (CHSN is available over the air. Channel 19.3, for example, in Des Moines.) Some, like NESN, YES Network, Marquee, CHSN and SportsNet Pittsburgh offer direct-to-consumer streaming through their apps. Others, like SportsNet LA and ROOT Sports, offer streaming that requires a subscription through a television provider. Rangers games stream through the Victory+ app. These RSNs are typically available through Fubo and DirecTV Stream but not Hulu or YouTube TV.
Co-owned regional sports network
Teams: Baltimore Orioles, Washington Nationals
The Orioles and Nationals each own a piece of MASN (the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network), but it’s not an even split. The Orioles have always owned the vast majority of the network, a deal established when the Nationals came into existence as a potential drain on the Orioles’ market. MASN has a second channel — MASN2 — which lets the network split the two teams’ schedules, airing half of each team’s games on MASN and half on MASN2. Broadcasting two teams in close proximity to one another, with network ownership lopsided, has long been a point of contention, and the sides announced a resolution earlier this month that frees the Nationals to explore alternatives at the end of this season.
What you need to watch these games: MASN is available with most television providers. Its coverage area spans parts of six states plus Washington, D.C. MASN has an app for streaming, but access is limited to viewers who subscribe to MASN through a TV or satellite provider. Like many other regional sports networks, MASN is available via Fubo and DirecTV but not Hulu or YouTubeTV.
Regional sports network (but the region is Canada)
Team: Toronto Blue Jays
Sportsnet is, according to its website, “Canada’s No. 1 sports media brand,” which seems hard to argue. Sportsnet handles the Blue Jays’ television, streaming and radio broadcasts, but the network is also Canada’s national rights holder for the NHL and handles regional broadcasts for the Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers and Toronto Maple Leafs. Sportsnet also carries half of the Toronto Raptors’ games. If you’re watching live sports in Canada, there’s a good chance you’re watching Sportsnet.
What you need to watch these games: You need to live in Canada, basically. Sportsnet is owned by Rogers Communications, which is a massive media and telecommunications company based in Toronto (the Blue Jays’ ballpark is called the Rogers Centre), and so the station is readily available throughout the country. Sportsnet also offers the direct-to-consumer Sportsnet+ app.
Regional sports network/over-the-air/MLB
Team: New York Mets
Most Mets games are broadcast by SNY, a regional sports network, but some are carried over the air via PIX 11, a CW Network station that’s also available through a handful of popular streaming platforms. However, the Mets’ SNY broadcasts are streamed online through the MLB app (similar to the five teams whose broadcasts are controlled entirely by the league).
What you need to watch these games: First you need to know which outlet is carrying which game, then you need a subscription to SNY, some sort of access to PIX11, and — depending on how you watch to watch —maybe a Mets subscription on MLB.TV (which is available to SNY subscribers). SNY is also available on Hulu and DirecTV, but it’s no longer on Fubo. The Mets package on MLB.TV is slightly more expensive ($24.99 monthly, $124.99 annually) than the other teams that stream exclusively through MLB, but SNY subscribers can use their existing accounts to gain access to the MLB.com stream.
Amazon Prime Video
Team: New York Yankees
Some national outlets and regional sports networks that carry MLB games are available as Amazon Prime Video add-ons, but Prime Video itself also will broadcast 21 Yankees games — mostly on Wednesdays — “at no additional cost to Prime members in the Yankees’ home-team footprint.” The Yankees’ YES Network handles the bulk of the broadcasts, but they stream on Amazon Prime Video.
What you need to watch these games: The games stream through the Amazon Prime Video app, which is available on phones, tablets, game consoles, some smart TVs and various streaming devices. For out-of-market viewers, the Yankees’ Prime Video games will be available on MLB.TV subscribers.
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(Photo: Scott Winters / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
