NBC Sports is close to taking back the Sunday morning MLB package it walked away from just two years ago, according to Austin Karp of the Sports Business Journal.
The network is finalizing details to reclaim the MLB Sunday Leadoff package currently on The Roku Channel, marking a complete reversal from when NBC decided the games weren’t worth $30 million annually and let the deal expire after 2023.
But the Sunday morning games make a lot more sense now that NBC is set to pay nearly $200 million per year for Sunday Night Baseball. The morning package would create a makeshift doubleheader on most Sundays, giving NBC programming synergy between its broadcast network and Peacock.
Karp reports that NBC plans to use both Peacock and its broadcast network for the Sunday morning inventory, potentially putting some early games exclusively on the streaming service while using others as lead-ins for NBC’s Sunday programming.
The timing remains unclear. Roku’s current deal runs through 2026 at just $10 million annually, which is a third of what NBC originally paid. NBC could buy out the remaining contract or wait until 2027, though, as the Philadelphia Inquirer previously reported, that transition is expected to happen sooner.
For NBC, the Sunday morning reclamation fits into a broader live sports strategy centered on making Peacock a must-have streaming destination. The network has made aggressive moves to position Sunday as its premium sports day, adding NFL and NBA commitments alongside the incoming MLB package.
The final details should be announced alongside the broader MLB media rights shuffle that Commissioner Rob Manfred has already confirmed is nearing completion with NBC, ESPN, and Netflix.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.