Major League Baseball has announced that Roku has agreed to an exclusive multi-year media rights deal to broadcast live Sunday morning games under the Sunday Leadoff package. The slate of games will begin this Sunday, May 19 on The Roku Channel with a matchup between the St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Red Sox. The schedule for Roku includes 18 games that run through September 15 featuring bonafide contenders and dynamic superstars up and down the lineup, most of which will serve as the first game of the day. Roku has an exclusivity window during the time in which it airs games as well, all of which start at 1:05 p.m. EST or earlier outside of two games taking place in the Pacific Standard Time Zone (PST).
“As television programming, live sports, and the leagues have fragmented across networks, apps, and multiple packages, Roku –home to all of them– plays an increasingly crucial role for viewers and advertisers,” Charlie Collier, president of Roku Media, said in a statement. “With this deal, Roku delivers free, live, weekly Sunday baseball and 24/7 baseball curation, destinations, and channels across our platform. The lead-in to all of television is now the lead-off for Sunday baseball as well. It’s a terrific partnership.”
In addition to these live Sunday Leadoff games, Roku is also adding an MLB Zone to its platform that will allow baseball fans to find live and upcoming games, along with nightly recaps and highlights. Moreover, an MLB free ad-supported television (FAST) channel will be available through Roku as well along with other integrations through the platform. The FAST channel itself will contain baseball content such as Game of the Week replays, Minor League Baseball game replays and baseball highlights.
“With free games available to anyone, MLB games on Roku will be widely accessible to fans,” Noah Garden, MLB deputy commissioner of business and media, said in a statement. “Since Roku serves as an entertainment gateway for millions, this partnership offers a valuable new promotional and distributional platform for MLB games and content.”
Live game telecasts for Sunday Leadoff will be produced in collaboration with Major League Baseball and feature broadcast teams focused in the local markets. For this Sunday’s matchup, St. Louis Cardinals television play-by-play announcer Chip Caray will serve in the same role, along with Will Middlebrooks as the analyst and Alexa Datt as the reporter.
NBCUniversal’s Peacock had previously been the streaming home of the Sunday game package in what was reportedly a two-year deal worth $60 million. Ahead of the year, the two sides were unable to reach an agreement to sustain the broadcast property on the OTT streaming service. MLB had also streamed games on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in the past as it worked to expand its presence on digital media outlets.
