NBC, Netflix, and ESPN Get Joint Custody of Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball’s media landscape is being reshaped by an unprecedented partnership, as NBC, Netflix, and ESPN agree to share national broadcast rights in a joint arrangement that blurs the lines between traditional television and streaming.
For MLB, this is less about picking a single flagship partner and more about maximizing reach across every kind of screen. NBC brings legacy broadcast muscle and a deep history with baseball. ESPN remains the sport’s most visible cable platform, with studio infrastructure and nightly shoulder programming that can frame the season’s storylines. Netflix, the newest player in live sports, offers global streaming scale and direct access to younger, cord-cutting audiences who are more likely to discover a game via an app than a channel guide.
The structure resembles “joint custody”: packages of regular-season and marquee matchups are expected to be distributed across the three outlets, with each platform emphasizing its strengths. NBC can anchor big weekend windows on over-the-air TV. ESPN can maintain premium time slots and integrate games into its daily news cycle. Netflix, which has already tested sports-adjacent content through documentaries and live events, can experiment with flexible scheduling and worldwide promotion.
For MLB executives, the appeal is clear. Fragmented viewership has made single-network exclusivity less valuable than broad, multi-platform visibility. By placing games in front of both casual broadcast viewers and streaming-first fans, the league can chase audience growth while protecting the traditional habits of older, linear-TV loyalists.
There are challenges. Fans may need to juggle multiple subscriptions and platforms to follow their teams, reigniting concerns about accessibility and convenience. Competitive balance in exposure will be closely watched as well: small-market clubs will want assurances that they are not buried in the programming shuffle.
From the league’s perspective, though, this kind of hybrid rights model looks like the new normal. Rather than choosing between cable, broadcast, and streaming, MLB is betting on all three at once, turning its season into a shared tentpole that NBC, Netflix, and ESPN each have an incentive to promote heavily.
For MLB, this is less about picking a single flagship partner and more about maximizing reach across every kind of screen. NBC brings legacy broadcast muscle and a deep history with baseball. ESPN remains the sport’s most visible cable platform, with studio infrastructure and nightly shoulder programming that can frame the season’s storylines. Netflix, the newest player in live sports, offers global streaming scale and direct access to younger, cord-cutting audiences who are more likely to discover a game via an app than a channel guide.
The structure resembles “joint custody”: packages of regular-season and marquee matchups are expected to be distributed across the three outlets, with each platform emphasizing its strengths. NBC can anchor big weekend windows on over-the-air TV. ESPN can maintain premium time slots and integrate games into its daily news cycle. Netflix, which has already tested sports-adjacent content through documentaries and live events, can experiment with flexible scheduling and worldwide promotion.
For MLB executives, the appeal is clear. Fragmented viewership has made single-network exclusivity less valuable than broad, multi-platform visibility. By placing games in front of both casual broadcast viewers and streaming-first fans, the league can chase audience growth while protecting the traditional habits of older, linear-TV loyalists.
There are challenges. Fans may need to juggle multiple subscriptions and platforms to follow their teams, reigniting concerns about accessibility and convenience. Competitive balance in exposure will be closely watched as well: small-market clubs will want assurances that they are not buried in the programming shuffle.
From the league’s perspective, though, this kind of hybrid rights model looks like the new normal. Rather than choosing between cable, broadcast, and streaming, MLB is betting on all three at once, turning its season into a shared tentpole that NBC, Netflix, and ESPN each have an incentive to promote heavily.
