Roku, Major League Baseball Strike Multiyear Rights Agreement for ‘Sunday Leadoff’ Games
Roku has scored an exclusive multi-year rights agreement with Major League Baseball for its live “Sunday Leadoff” games.
Starting Sunday, The Roku Channel will offer the games for free along with an all-new MLB Zone to help baseball fans discover live and upcoming games, nightly recaps, highlights, a fully programmed MLB FAST channel, and more across the platform. On most Sundays throughout the season, Roku will be the home for the first games of the day, with an exclusivity window during airtime as well.
MLB “Sunday Leadoff “will stream every Sunday on The Roku Channel and TheRokuChannel.com from May 19 to Sept. 15. Additionally, paying subscribers of MLB.TV can watch all 18 matchups blackout free from anywhere in the world.
“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,” Roku Media president Charlie Collier 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.”
“With free games available to anyone, MLB games on Roku will be widely accessible to fans,” MLB’s deputy commissioner of business and media Noah Garden added. “Since Roku serves as an entertainment gateway for millions, this partnership offers a valuable new promotional and distribution platform for MLB games and content.”
On Sunday, the matchups will start with the St. Louis Cardinals hosting the Boston Red Sox.
Other featured games include the Baltimore Orioles with young stars Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson going head-to-head against the New York Yankees with Aaron Judge and Juan Soto on July 14; and the defending National League champion Arizona Diamondbacks with reigning National League Rookie of the Year Corbin Carroll will face the star-studded Los Angeles Dodgers with Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman on Sept. 1
The game telecasts will be produced in collaboration with Major League Baseball. Broadcast teams each week will be market-focused, with Chip Caray (play-by-play), Will Middlebrooks (analyst), and Alexa Datt (reporter) calling this Sunday’s game.
The full schedule is below:
The Roku Channel reached an estimated 120 million people as of the fourth quarter of 2023. In addition to being available online and via Roku devices or TVs, The Roku Channel can be accessed through the Roku app on iOS and Android devices, Amazon Fire TVs, Samsung TVs and Google TVs and other Android TV OS devices.
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