New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
NBC Sports to produce Sunday MLB shows
STAMFORD — After a break of more than 20 years, NBC Sports is returning to the diamond.
Starting May 8, games will be livestreamed on the Peacock platform on 18 consecutive Sundays. The first six of those games will start at 11:30 a.m., while the next 12 contests will start at noon. Each of those games will feature pre-game and post-game shows produced by Stamford-based NBC Sports.
“We are excited to announce this multi-year partnership with Major League Baseball, which will exclusively offer Peacock subscribers a premium property in a unique time slot for the sport, while continuing NBC Sports’ rich baseball history,” NBC Sports Chairman Pete Bevacqua said in a statement.
In the first MLB game carried on Peacock this season, the Boston Red Sox will take on the Chicago White Sox at Fenway Park. The May 8 contest will be simulcast on the NBC broadcast network, while the remaining 17 games will be available on Peacock’s premium service.
On each of the 18 Sundays that Peacock carries a game, no other games will be scheduled to start before 1:30 p.m., giving Peacock 90 minutes or two hours of exclusive live MLB action.
Peacock will also exclusively carry the SiriusXM All-Star Futures Game, which will feature top minor league prospects and be played during All-Star week in July at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
In addition, Peacock will feature classic MLB games, documentaries from the MLB Film & Video Archive and highlight packages available on-demand in a new MLB hub, according to NBC Sports officials.
The MLB programming will complement Peacock’s other live sports coverage, which includes NFL Sunday Night Football, the Olympics, English Premier League soccer, Notre Dame college football and NTT IndyCar Series.
“As consumption habits continue to evolve, it is important for us to provide new ways for fans who are outside the cable bundle to watch MLB games,” Noah Garden, Major League Baseball’s chief revenue officer, said in a statement. “This agreement marks an exciting new chapter to the extensive history of innovation between MLB and NBC Sports in delivering exciting baseball action to our fans.”
NBC Sports last carried live MLB games in 2000, with its television broadcasts of the league starting about 60 years earlier. The first MLB TV broadcast was a 1939 Cincinnati RedsBrooklyn Dodgers doubleheader on W2XBS, the precursor to WNBC-TV, in New York. NBC Sports was a home to the first World Series broadcast in 1947 and the first nationally broadcast All-Star Game in 1952. It has televised 39 World Series — more than any other network.
From 1957 to 2000, NBC Sports hosted a range of baseball programming, including Game of the Week and Monday Night Baseball telecasts, more than 30 All-Star games and extensive postseason coverage.
“It is a welcome return to baseball from a longtime partner. What I like most about this agreement is that it signals Peacock becoming a true ‘baseball hub’ — complete with classic games, and canned MLB content, in addition to their new early Sunday time slot,” Josh Shuart, director of sports management at Sacred Heart University’s Jack Welch College of Business & Technology, told Hearst Connecticut Media.
“Carving out exclusivity and ensuring practically no overlap or competition until after 1:30 p.m., is more significant than one might originally think. It also provides NBC, and particularly Peacock, with even more sports content to drive viewers to the streaming app.”