NBCUniversal’s Peacock is finalizing a deal with Major League Baseball for exclusive rights to stream games in a new Sunday time slot, according to people familiar with the discussions, as the league looks to increase digital partnerships.
The deal with NBCUniversal, a unit of Comcast Corp. CMCSA -0.82% , would involve a package of 18 games, some beginning at 11:30 a.m. ET and others just after noon, the people said. That would limit the conflict with Sunday games that typically start at 1 p.m., making the telecasts more valuable for Peacock. The games would primarily be played on the East Coast, given the early timing, the people said.
The games would be available exclusively for paying Peacock subscribers, meaning consumers wouldn’t have access through traditional cable-TV packages or other streaming services, such as MLB’s direct-to-consumer app, the people familiar with the discussions said.
Talks are continuing, and a deal could be announced in the coming days, the people said. The league is coming off a labor standoff with the players’ union that delayed the start of the 2022 season. The two parties on Thursday agreed to a new labor contract; opening day is now scheduled for April 7.
The New York Post reported last month that MLB was in discussions with NBCUniversal for a package of games.
MLB is hard at work to maximize the value of its media rights and cash in on new demand from streaming services. That requires carving up its schedule in creative ways. Earlier this week, Apple Inc. announced it would broadcast MLB games on Apple TV+ on Friday nights, another exclusive set of games that will be available only on the streaming platform.
Streaming services are finding live sports to be a major draw in their push to sign up viewers and subscribers—just as they have long been in the traditional TV world. Streamers like Apple and Peacock “need more ammunition,” said Daniel Cohen, senior vice president of global media-rights consulting at Octagon. “And nothing is better when it comes to being an audience aggregator than live sports.”
Walt Disney Co. ’s ESPN broadcasts MLB games, mostly on Sunday nights, while WarnerMedia’s Turner Sports and Fox Sports also air national baseball games. MLB has also recently been seeking a buyer for a package of nonexclusive weeknight games, which used to be carried by ESPN. Amazon.com Inc., a minority owner in the YES Network, is expected to stream 21 New York Yankees games this season.
The collective bargaining agreement gives MLB the right to schedule up to eight games a season before noon.
Photo: Nick Wass/Associated Press
NBC was an early broadcaster of baseball games, dating back to 1939. The network aired MLB games for decades until 1989, when it lost the rights.
MLB already has streamed some games online through deals with free services such as Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook and Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube. Like the NFL and other leagues, MLB is ramping up its pursuit of deals with paid streaming services. The NFL signed a major deal last year with Amazon for the rights to Thursday Night Football, while adding streaming rights into the mix in its long-term renewals with traditional media partners.
For consumers, the fragmentation of sports rights across multiple streaming services, each with exclusive rights to certain games, may be confusing and frustrating, some experts say.
“This makes it more difficult for the average sports consumer. Right now we’re in this melt up of streaming services reaching an inflection point,” Mr. Cohen said.
The collective bargaining agreement gives MLB the right to schedule up to eight games a season before noon. Typically, only two such games are played each year: one in Boston on Patriots’ Day and the other in Washington on July 4, both around 11 a.m. With the Peacock deal, it appears MLB will schedule six more. MLB had sought the ability to add even more early games to the schedule in bargaining, but the sides were unable to agree, a person familiar with the matter said.
Under the terms being discussed with MLB, NBC Sports would produce the pre- and post-game shows, as well as the games. The first game, expected in early May, would air on both NBC’s broadcast network and Peacock, the people familiar with the discussions said. The rest of the 17 games would be exclusively on Peacock.
Peacock offers three tiers to subscribers: a free tier with limited content; a $4.99-a-month package with commercials; and a $9.99-a-month ad-free tier.
MLB games on Peacock would be exclusively for subscribers that pay for Peacock, one of the people familiar with the discussions said. The premium Peacock tier has already carried Sunday Night Football, this year’s Super Bowl, the Beijing Winter Olympics and English Premier League games.
Peacock had 24.5 million monthly active accounts at the end of 2021, and over nine million people pay for the service, which is also available free of charge to existing cable and broadband customers of Comcast and other cable-TV providers.
NBCUniversal has seen some success with morning sports programming, with solid viewership of English soccer games.
Write to Lillian Rizzo at [email protected] and Jared Diamond at [email protected]
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