Baseball broadcasting has come a long way over six decades, from fans gathering around their televisions for a “Game of the Week” on Saturday afternoons… to watching your team on some obscure “independent” free TV channel that required rabbit ear antennas… to subscribing to cable or satellite television and finding your team on the convenient, but ultimately unsustainable, “regional sports network.”
This week, the Marlins officially enter a new frontier, presenting their games via a mix of streaming and stand-alone channels on five cable and satellite providers.
For the Marlins, it’s a move borne out of necessity; the financially-strapped FanDuel Sports networks – two in Florida and more than a dozen elsewhere – remain on life support, and the Marlins knew they had to move their games after FanDuel missed a Jan. 1 rights payment to the team.
In recent years, MLB created a local media arm for teams that no longer have a viable regional sports channel option in their markets. The Marlins are one of 10 teams that have left FanDuel in recent months.
So when the Marlins open their season at 7:10 p.m. on Friday at home against Colorado, all fans with Internet service will have at least one way to watch the games. Many fans will have multiple ways.
What to know:
▪ If you have broadband or decent internet service, you can watch the games by ordering a monthly or full-season package on Marlins.TV.
A subscription for access to those 157 games will be $19.99 per month or $99.99 for the season; Marlins season-ticket holders get half price off the season rate. Viewers with a Smart TV or Firestick can stream those games on their televisions, though fans who are technologically-challenged might need help from a friend or relative.
The Marlins are offering two free tickets to an April home game of your choice as a carrot for signing up for the season package on Marlins.TV.
▪ Five cable and satellite providers signed up to provide the games on a stand-alone channel that will carry Marlins games and pre-game and post-game shows but go black the rest of the time.
Those five are Comcast Xfinity (with games airing on channel 1261), DirecTV (channel 655 for both streaming and satellite homes), Cox (66), AT&T U-verse (1718) and Charter Spectrum, which will carry games on channel 360 in its South Florida digital homes (primarily Miami Beach) but on different channels in homes in Orlando, Tampa and few other markets upstate. (Go to Marlins.com/watch for more information.)
▪ DirecTV and Comcast say if you already are paying for the sports tier necessary to receive the FanDuel networks and other sports channels, there is no additional charge to receive Marlins games. MLB and the Marlins say their understanding is that there also won’t be an additional charge to watch Marlins games on Charter/Spectrum, Cox and AT&T U-verse.
▪ Streaming service FuboTV also struck a deal to carry Marlins games. There will be no extra charge, per the Marlins.
▪ Six major South Florida cable/satellite providers did not strike deals to carry Marlins games by a Thursday deadline: Breezeline (which services North Miami Beach, Aventura, Sunny Isles and other pockets of Dade and Broward), YouTube TV, Dish Network, Blustream, Hulu and Hotwire.
Of those six, Breezline, Bluestream and Hotwire carried the games last year through FanDuel, but did not agree to a deal to carry the games this season. YouTube TV, Hulu and Dish did not carry FanDuel and thus did not provide Marlins games in recent years.
Subscribers of those six services have the option of streaming the games through Marlins.TV.
▪ The Marlins are negotiating with CBS-4 and CW-33 to simulcast the maximum permitted 10 games. They’re also talking with Telemundo about simulcasting a few games with Spanish audio.
▪ Because MLB team’s broadcast territories are geographically larger than those for NBA and NHL teams, everyone who lives in Florida will be able to receive Marlins games through Marlins.TV, Fubo or the five aforementioned cable/satellite providers that signed up.
Out-of-market Marlins fans can sign up to get Marlins games through MLB.TV. The cost for the single-team package through MLB.TV is the same as the cost through Marlins.TV: $99.99 for the season or $19.99 per month.
Marlins fans in Florida can gain access to games for the 29 other teams, besides the Marlins, by paying an additional $100 for the season-long bundle package available on Marlins.TV.
DirecTV will continue to offer its Extra Innings package for fans who want access to out-of-market games but do not want to stream them.
▪ Games won’t look any different than they have on FanDuel Sports Florida, with a couple of exceptions: There won’t be a separate road postgame show and home postgame shows will be shorter. And you will be seeing less of Rod Allen and Craig Minervini and more of Craig Mish, Tommy Hutton and Jeff Nelson.
Allen, who has called as many as 50 games in recent years, was moved to a TV studio and radio analyst role. Nelson (69 games), Hutton (60) and Gaby Sanchez (28 games) will share game analyst duties alongside Kyle Sielaff. Hutton, 80, is retiring after this season.
Minervini, who hosted more than half of Marlins studio shows in past years, will split anchor duties with Mish, whose role expands.
The Marlins are one of more than a dozen teams that are using MLB’s media arm to stream their games. By 2028, nearly all teams are expected to go that route.
Network changes
Though Fox is retaining rights to a Saturday package, a league championship series and the World Series, MLB’s national TV landscape also is changing. What to know:
▪ NBC, which carried Major League Baseball from 1957 to 2000, essentially gets what had been the ESPN package (Sunday night games and the first round of the playoffs), plus the only prime-time game on the second day of the season (Dodgers-Arizona on March 26), a Labor Day night game and rights to air every MLB game regionally on July 5.
NBC’s acquisition of the Sunday MLB package will give the network live sports on nearly every Sunday night all year. Sunday night games will stream on Peacock when NBC has NBA or NFL games on those days. All of NBC’s MLB games will stream on Peacock and also will air on NBC’s sports cable channel, NBCSN, which was shuttered at the end of 2021 but relaunched earlier this year.
Also notable: NBC, NBCSN and Peacock will carry the MLB Draft on July 11 and the All-Star Futures Game on July 12.
Former Fox college football and Chicago White Sox announcer Jason Benetti will call NBC’s Sunday night games with a local analyst. And longtime NBC signature voice Bob Costas, who gave up MLB play by play duties with Turner and MLB Network a year ago, will co-host NBC’s brief pre-game show as part of his “emeritus” role with the network.
▪ As part of MLB’s new $200-million-a-year deal with Peacock and NBC, Peacock will regain rights to a package of Sunday late-morning/noon games, which it carried in 2022 and 2023.
Those 18 “Sunday Leadoff” games will be followed by an MLB Network-produced “whip-around” coverage of all of the day’s games. Peacock will also regularly feature an MLB “Game of the Day,” which will be available to fans outside the markets of the clubs competing.
▪ ESPN replaced Sunday Night Baseball and its wild card games with a 30-game package that includes some weeknights over the course of the season, Memorial Day games and games on the first day after the All-Star break.
▪ More significantly, ESPN’s new MLB deal includes a new and valuable component: Rights to stream out-of-market games. Those thousands of games now will stream live on the ESPN App, and also will continue to be available on MLB platforms (including MLB.TV) in 2026. That out-of-market package cost $150 last season and is expected to be similarly priced next year.
Also, ESPN will also offer more than 150 out-of-market regular season games every day all season as part of a new “Game of the Day” for subscribers to the ESPN Unlimited plan.
▪ TBS will continue to air a regular season package on Tuesdays and a league championship series each year. ▪ Apple will continue streaming Friday night MLB double-headers through 2028.
▪ Netflix agreed to pay about $50 million annually for a package that includes exclusive rights to the opening night game (Giants-Yankees on Wednesday), the Home Run Derby, the Field of Dreams game and the World Baseball Classic in 2026. N
This story was originally published March 26, 2026 at 9:08 AM.
Miami Herald
Barry Jackson has written for the Miami Herald since 1986 and has written the Florida Sports Buzz column since 2002.