MLB, NBC Leaders Say Broadcast TV Still Matters in Streaming Era

Even in a fast-growing market for streaming, NBC’s forthcoming rights deal with Major League Baseball is a further testament by both parties to the enduring power of broadcast television.

Both MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and NBC Sports president Rick Cordella, in separate interviews Tuesday at the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit in New York, championed the linear broadcast reach that is core to the pending deal that will include a Sunday night showcase in the regular season and early-round postseason rights.

“Being in business with baseball is fantastic,” Cordella said. “How do you elevate any one baseball game to be more meaningful than the rest? One way to do that is with storytelling and production, and we plan to do that with baseball.”

Manfred added that the NBC deal is part of a broader strategy to expand the league’s national reach where possible.

“We feel that Sunday Night Baseball on broadcast television is important,” Manfred said. 

The NBC-MLB deal, expected to be announced later this season, is part of a set of “agreements in principle,” Manfred said, that will also include a substantially reworked pact with ESPN and a new deal with Netflix for the Home Run Derby. Those agreements are all part of a reallocation of rights previously held and then abandoned by ESPN, and are a precursor to a fundamental reconstruction of MLB’s media profile planned for 2028.

A significant presence on the Peacock streaming service is also a core part of the NBC-MLB pact for the 2026–2028 seasons. Both executives, however, touted the ability to place baseball along with the NFL and NBA to create a dominant year-round presence of live sports on primetime Sunday night television. That broad notion to expand the established viewership power of Sunday Night Football, the top primetime show in U.S. television for 14 years running, has been actively considered for months.

“Fifty weeks of the year is what we’ll have between the NFL, Major League Baseball, and the NBA. That’s something that I don’t think has ever happened in broadcast TV history,” Cordella said. “So we’re pretty excited about that. … Sunday night is going to be hopefully easy in the consumer’s mind, knowing that NBC has high-level games across the three major sports in America.”

The Jordan Rules

When NBC announced in May the involvement of NBA legend Michael Jordan in the network’s coverage of the league as a “special contributor,” there was an audible gasp at Radio City Music Hall in New York, but there have been few details disclosed on the nature of his involvement in the broadcasts.

Cordella sought to keep the suspense high around His Airness.

“You can expect to see him on opening night [on Oct. 21], for sure,” Cordella said. “Where it goes from there, you’ll have to tune in to see.”