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New Major League Baseball Deal Should Not Affect Jays Fans
It would seem because Rogers owns the team and Sportsnet, almost every Jays game should stay right where they normally are next season.
But there's been a big change down in the U.S. and it's likely some fans there won't be entirely happy.
NBC has regained baseball rights for the first time in decades. (Remember when Joe Garagiola did colour on those Saturday afternoon games? That seems a long time ago and it was.) They'll get a game of the week every Sunday, beginning next season. (To show you the pecking order of sports down south, if the Sunday night game takes place at the same time as the NBA or the NFL, baseball moves over to the company's Peacock streaming service.)
ESPN, which had the run of baseball for years, has a new restructured deal that sees it get only 30 games, a far cry from what it had.
And here's the only one that could possibly take a Jays game availability away from viewers here, although it does not seem likely. Netflix is set to take viewers out to the ball game, but only for special occasions. "Netflix is set to become the new home of the Home Run Derby and will broadcast some of MLB's special location games, including the Field of Dreams Game in Iowa.
You may remember this season, when a few Jays games aired on AppleTV+ on Friday nights and were not on Sportsnet. It does not appear that will happen this year.
MLB new TV deals details: What to know about baseball's media partnerships with NBC, Netflix, ESPN
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Re: New Major League Baseball Deal Should Not Affect Jays Fans
RadioActive wrote:
You may remember this season, when a few Jays games aired on AppleTV+ on Friday nights and were not on Sportsnet. It does not appear that will happen this year.
Friday night games on Apple TV+ will still be happening. What I'm curious about is whether non-Jays games airing on NBC/Peacock will be available to MLB.TV subscribers in Canada (I watch a lot of baseball, not just the Jays).
Friday Night Baseball Will Continue on Apple TV
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Re: New Major League Baseball Deal Should Not Affect Jays Fans
My guess is that Peacock may have demanded exclusivity, or why bother? And as you know, that service is not available in Canada. So it's possible it could be carried on MLB.com but only for Canada when it's on the NBC streamer. That's happened before for America-only services.
Things sure get complicated fast with this stuff.
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Thread Starter- cash
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Re: New Major League Baseball Deal Should Not Affect Jays Fans
Strange to see Sunday Night Baseball not on ESPN. Seems it's just on Peacock in the USA. Does Peacock have more subscribers than ESPN? Doesn't affect Canada, it's on TSN as usual.
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Re: New Major League Baseball Deal Should Not Affect Jays Fans
Strange to see Sunday Night Baseball not on ESPN. Seems it's just on Peacock in the USA. Does Peacock have more subscribers than ESPN? Doesn't affect Canada, it's on TSN as usual.
This may help explain it. From November 2025:
"The new deal stems from ESPN’s decision to opt out of its “Sunday Night Baseball” package earlier this year. ESPN struck a new deal with MLB, acquiring the rights to MLB.TV and a midweek game package. NBC Sports will take over the Sunday Night games, and Netflix will be the new home for the next three Home Run Derbies. All the deals begin with the 2026 season."
Major League Baseball announces new media rights deals for NBC, ESPN and Netflix
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Thread Starter- paterson1
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Re: New Major League Baseball Deal Should Not Affect Jays Fans
It's great to see the Jays back for another season on Sportsnet. Three super games against the A's over the weekend. An MLB record of 50 strikeouts in the opening three games for the Jays 50th season!
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Strange to see Sunday Night Baseball not on ESPN. Seems it's just on Peacock in the USA. Does Peacock have more subscribers than ESPN? Doesn't affect Canada, it's on TSN as usual.
ESPN has waaay more subscribers than Peacock. It is on basic cable in the U. S. Cable companies pay a bit over $9 per month per subscriber. Since it is on basic cable and you don't watch sports, too bad, you pay. To put that fee into perspective, the subscriber fee for CNN is in the $1-$1.50 range. A&E roughly .50.
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It's great to see the Jays back for another season on Sportsnet. Three super games against the A's over the weekend. An MLB record of 50 strikeouts in the opening three games for the Jays 50th season!
Couldn’t agree more with you paterson1, excellent coverage as usual, but I missed Buck! I am still a bit torn with the robo-umpire, but it worked in the Jays favour a few times, still, it makes the ump look bad! I also noticed that the pitch velocity was not always displayed, maybe a glitch. I caught most the games on TV, but there was some radio in there too!
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Re: New Major League Baseball Deal Should Not Affect Jays Fans
It's great to see the Jays back for another season on Sportsnet. Three super games against the A's over the weekend. An MLB record of 50 strikeouts in the opening three games for the Jays 50th season!
Couldn’t agree more with you paterson1, excellent coverage as usual, but I missed Buck! I am still a bit torn with the robo-umpire, but it worked in the Jays favour a few times, still, it makes the ump look bad! I also noticed that the pitch velocity was not always displayed, maybe a glitch. I caught most the games on TV, but there was some radio in there too!
Yes I missed Buck as well. It will be interesting to see when he comes back for his formal goodbye to viewers and fans when he returns to Rogers Centre later in the year. I don't mind Joe Siddal, he isn't Buck but he works well with Dan Shulman. I am glad to see the strike box is still in the picture. I heard it was being dropped but it was on the screen as usual.
- Tq345
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Re: New Major League Baseball Deal Should Not Affect Jays Fans
Strange to see Sunday Night Baseball not on ESPN. Seems it's just on Peacock in the USA. Does Peacock have more subscribers than ESPN? Doesn't affect Canada, it's on TSN as usual.
I watched last night's game. I was hoping the NBC/Peacock graphics would be better, but it's in the same teeny tiny font as ESPN, maybe even worse.
I guess I've been spoiled by the very readable graphics that Sportsnet uses for the Jays games.