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.

NBC Sports has acquired the broadcasting rights to an additional regular season NFL game to be broadcast on Saturday, Dec. 21 across NBC, Peacock and Telemundo. The additional Week 16 matchup will mark the first time NBCUniversal will broadcast Saturday and Sunday games during that week since the 1997 season. For NBC, this follows last season when the network’s Sunday Night Football property attained a total audience delivery averaging 21.4 million viewers during the regular season. The metric rendered the property the No. 1 show in prime-time television for the 13th consecutive year, extending its streak that began in the 2011-12 campaign.

“We’re excited to work with our partners at the NFL to acquire an additional game for NBCUniversal platforms at a crucial point in the playing season,” Rick Cordella, president of NBC Sports, said in a statement. “With two NFL games in exclusive windows on the last December weekend before the holidays, we continue to deliver for our owned-stations, affiliates and partners.”

NBCUniversal presented three games during Wild Card Weekend last season, including a matchup exclusively on Peacock that averaged 23 million viewers across platforms, making it the most-streamed event in U.S. history. Although NBCUniversal is not expected to have a Peacock exclusive playoff game this season, it will broadcast the Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles opening game from São Paulo, Brazil exclusively on the Peacock streaming platform. This marks the NFL’s first opening weekend game on a Friday since 1970 and the first time the league will ever play a game in Brazil.

NBC will also open the 2024 regular season with the NFL Kickoff game between the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs and Baltimore Ravens, a rematch of the AFC Championship. The NFL will reveal the full 272-game regular season schedule this Wednesday at 8 p.m. EST on NFL Network, NFL.com, the NFL app and NFL+. Mike Tirico, lead Sunday Night Football broadcaster, will make a guest appearance on the program where the property’s slate of games is expected to be revealed. The property falls under flex scheduling jurisdiction that can be used up to two times between Weeks 5 and 10 and at the discretion of the league between Weeks 11 and 17.

NBCUniversal is currently entering the second season of an 11-year media rights deal with the National Football League that enables the company to present Sunday Night Football games in prime time television. The company is also reportedly trying to acquire a package of National Basketball Association games that, if successful, would bring the league back to its airwaves for the first time since 2002. NBCUniversal will broadcast the Olympic Games Paris 2024 this summer and provide a multifaceted array of viewership options as part of its media rights deal with the International Olympic Committee that runs through 2032.

NASCAR revealed plans for a new element in the upcoming season of races. In partnership with TNT Sports, the 2025 Cup Series schedule will include an in-season tournament using a bracket-style format.

The previous three races, streamed on Prime Video, will determine the rankings for the tournament as the governing body experiments with the new format during the first season of its groundbreaking seven-year media contract.

“With the launch of our new media rights partnerships in 2025, we were excited to partner with Prime Video and TNT Sports to collaborate on fan engagement concepts that drive story lines in our sport and innovation from a production perspective,” said Brian Herbst, NASCAR SVP, media and productions, in a press release. “Having head-to-head driver matchups for each one of TNT’s NASCAR Cup Series races will add a compelling fan engagement element across media platforms like TNT, Bleacher Report, House of Highlights and NASCAR digital platforms.”

All drivers are allowed to participate in the seeding races, and out of those events, the top 32 drivers will be chosen to compete in the in-season tournament. Seeding for this tournament will be determined by the driver’s best finish in the three races, with tiebreakers being decided by their next-best finishes and then their season points position. During the in-season tournament on TNT Sports and Max, drivers will go head-to-head, and the one with the higher finishing position will advance to the next round. After five rounds, the winner of the tournament will be awarded a grand prize of $1 million.

“It’s never been a better time to be a fan of motorsports, and this new first-ever in-season tournament will bring a new competitive dynamic to NASCAR’s summer race weekends,” said Craig Barry, executive vice president and chief content officer, TNT Sports. “TNT Sports has always been at the forefront of creativity and innovation, and NASCAR is a perfect partner to bring this vision to life across our networks and platforms.”

“We’re excited to be part of NASCAR’s first in-season tournament next season,” said Charlie Neiman, head of sports partnerships, Prime Video. “This tournament will showcase the league’s ability to drive innovation and engage fans with increased competition during a key part of the NASCAR schedule.”