An All Too Early Look At MLB TV Viewership For The 2026 Season
Broadcasts of Major League Baseball early in the 2026 season have been robust. Here's the numbers for regional and national broadcasts.
Broadcasts of Major League Baseball in the first week of the 2026 season have been robust. (Photo by Joseph Weiser/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) Icon Sportswire via Getty Images The 2026 Major League Baseball regular season is just over one week old. Still, with a large number of clubs switching around their regional sports networks – either under MLB’s umbrella or launching their own – it’s never too early to take a look at viewership trends.
It wasn’t until Opening Day that fans of the Reds, Rays, Marlins, Brewers, Mariners, Tigers, Nationals, Cardinals, Royals, and Braves knew where to find them on the channel listings as the fallout from the Main Street Sports bankruptcy, the ability for the Nationals to get out from under MASN, and the Mariners shuttering ROOT Sports NW, impacted television providers. So, too, has MLB rolled out additional partners at the national level. Now, fans have streaming partners in the likes of Netflix, Apple, and Peacock, as well as having games on NBC, FOX, FS1, TBS, TNT, ABC, ESPN, and MLB Network.
Across the regional sports networks that support the 29 U. S. clubs through Sunday, March 29, the games for the start of the 2026 season are down slightly (-2%) compared to the same number of games in 2025, according to Nielsen NSI.
Of those, 15 of the 29 teams saw increases. The largest gains coming from the Dodgers (+307%), Angels (+196%), and Cubs (+180%). Last season, both the Dodgers and Cubs opened in Japan.