MLB Revives Field of Dreams Game After Big Early TV Ratings

MLB is going back to the Iowa cornfields as part of its special-event strategy for 2026. 

The league is finalizing plans to have a third iteration of its Field of Dreams Game next year, sources tell Front Office Sports, reviving a strategy used by the league in 2021 and 2022. The Phillies and Twins will play at a complex adjacent to the filming site of the famed 1989 baseball movie of the same name that starred Kevin Costner. 

The first two trips to Iowa were successful, with the first one involving the Yankees and White Sox averaging 5.9 million viewers on Fox, representing the most-watched game in the regular season since 2005. A return the following year involving the Cubs and Reds nearly halved to an average of 3.1 million viewers, but still represented by far the high-water mark for MLB’s 2022 regular season, except for a game in Aaron Judge’s historic home-run chase later that year. 

The 2026 event will be a continuation of MLB’s run of domestic special-event games, an effort that this year saw the league go to Bristol Motor Speedway. The MLB Speedway Classic, though marred by rain and an overnight postponement, set a single-game attendance record.

The Phillies and Twins will play in a newly developed permanent field as the Field of Dreams site, now owned by the nonprofit Dyersville Events Inc., that is being developed into a large-scale youth baseball complex. The first two MLB games there happened at a temporary venue. The site also remains a popular tourist attraction. 

The development of the plans for another Field of Dreams game additionally arrives as the league is planning to release on Tuesday its 2026 regular-season schedule. 

While that release might not match the intensity or spectacle of those for the NFL or NBA, the unveiling of the MLB slate nonetheless will set in motion a wide range of planning across numerous constituencies—including individual teams setting promotional calendars, fans and tour companies making travel arrangements, and broadcast and streaming networks angling for top matchups. 

Those media outlets will look a bit different from this year as MLB is also in the midst of finalizing a set of national-level rights deals for the 2026–28 seasons.