As the 2026 Major League Baseball season gets underway, the sport is attempting to simplify its TV schedule with new network partnerships while also ushering in a new era of AI-based officiating.
For decades, baseball thrived on the predictability of regional sports networks and national broadcast windows. However, that longtime model is—and has been—in visible decline, with linear viewership plummeting from 40% to 60% over the past decade, particularly among younger audiences, according to Nielsen and related industry analyses.
As a result, in 2026, MLB finds itself navigating one of the most consequential transitions in its modern history—not just in terms of media rights, but in how the sport is fundamentally consumed.
Getting Personal
That transition is being analyzed not only by MLB, broadcasters, content providers and technical concerns, but by the newly structured TV-rights agreement between MLB and ESPN that reflects a sport in transition.
Under the new agreement announced last fall, ESPN will distribute MLB.TV through its app while gaining exclusive national game packages and local streaming rights for six specific teams. Subscribers can also access thousands of live games across both ESPN and MLB platforms, including a “game-of-the-day” offering and expanded summer coverage.
Baseball has also returned to NBC, with 25 primetime games scheduled, as well as coverage on Peacock and The Roku Channel. Additional rights deals with Netflix—including Opening Day coverage—are also part of the new mix of distribution options.
Fox Sports retained the rights for the All-Star Game and World Series, and TNT Sports retained its Tuesday night and postseason package.
Matt Coleman, futurist and CEO of Las Vegas-based FansXR, which provides live, fan-controlled broadcast views for entertainment and gamification, says such moves illustrate MLB’s efforts to adapt to today’s TV landscape.
“[MLB] is moving away from the stability of linear television toward a fragmented, multiplatform future defined by streaming, personalization and interactivity.” he said.
Although some regional sports networks such as NESN—which announced a redesigned on-air look and expanded signature programming for this season’s coverage of the Boston Red Sox—are still very much in the game, many other regional sports networks have collapsed, forcing MLB to rethink not just distribution, but its entire relationship with fans.
That’s because a demographic reality is becoming harder to ignore. The average baseball fan is now approximately 57 years old, with a predominantly male audience skewing close to 70%, according to Statista. While loyalty among this base remains strong, MLB continues to lag behind the National Football League and National Basketball Association in attracting younger viewers.
And those viewers no longer consume sports as a scheduled, passive experience.
“Younger fans aren’t rejecting baseball; they’re rejecting passive consumption,” Coleman said. “The next generation expects to interact with the game in real time—predict outcomes, compete with friends and personalize their viewing experience. The leagues that understand this shift will unlock entirely new economics around engagement.”
That shift is already visible in how content is being distributed and consumed. MLB’s growing partnerships with streaming platforms, such as Apple TV, and emerging sports distributors like DAZN are less about replacing television and more about diversifying access points.
Meanwhile, social platforms—led in part by early experiments with Snap Inc.—have redefined how highlights are delivered, favoring short-form, mobile-first content that travels instantly across networks.
D-I-Y
The new MLB-ESPN agreement sits at the center of this evolving landscape. Rather than reinforcing the old model, it’s the bridge that blends national and local rights into a more flexible framework. This allows MLB to maintain reach while gradually reclaiming control over distribution.
“The real strategic objective is not simply rights revenue, but data ownership and building a direct, first-party relationship with fans that can be monetized across platforms,” Coleman said. “This is where the next phase of innovation becomes critical. The introduction of interactive engagement layers has the potential to fundamentally reshape the economics of the sport.
It only makes sense that it took an out-of-this-world effort to produce the 2026 World Baseball Classic, given that the event was broadcast in 172 countries and territories.
That access and the increasing popularity of the event led to record numbers of viewers for the recent tournament. For instance, the championship game, a 3-2 win by Venezuela over the United States, was seen by 10.8 million viewers on Fox and Fox Deportes. That number is nearly double the 4.9 million who watched Japan defeat the U.S. in the 2023 final.
All told, the 2026 WBC averaged almost 1.3 million viewers for its games on Fox, FS1 and FS2, which was more than double the 506,000 for the 2023 tournament.
With viewership and production expectations so high, Fox was well prepared in the camera department, lensing the action from the usual positions and many more: The mostly-Sony package included high home, high first, high third, low first and low third; plus center and tight center; mid-home robotic and dugout robotic, with two bullpen POVs and a booth handheld.
But that still wasn’t all, since the impact of the games―and the production―had much to do with MLB Network’s approach to present the international spectacle through its world feed.
“We employed two shallow depth of field rightfield cameras, also known as ‘The Megalodon’ (the Mirrorless Gyro-stabilized Lightweight DSLR Nano-rig),” MLB Network Director of Remote Technical Operations Steve Dolce said. Those cameras were supplied by St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Faction Media and were paired with wireless RX/TX equipment from CP Communications, also of St. Petersburg.
Other key equipment was provided by Los Angeles-based Beverly Hills Aerials for the in-game drone; an RF Wireless for UmpVu, which is an umpire mask with a built-in camera for the behind-the-plate perspective, for all of the U.S team’s games; and from Tempe, Ariz.-based Defy Products, the Wirecam and its new Dirt Cam system, which debuted during the WBC.
Indeed, the WBC proved to be the forum to place cameras virtually anywhere possible. “We placed four in-ground cameras to give us a ‘worm’s eye view’ of [the] three bases and home plate, which gave the broadcast some incredibly unique views,” Dolce said.
As for the most memorable aspect of the expansive broadcast, Dolce said, it was simply capturing the excitement of the tournament.
“Across the board, we really wanted to capture the noise and excitement from the crowds. We added a few extra natural sound mics” to pick up the sounds of the crowd, Dolce said. “You could really feel that passion in the broadcast, which was incredibly cool.
“When you think about the phrase ‘world feed,’ you need to remember it’s your truck and crew providing game coverage to every fan watching,” he continued. “Rights holders could augment the coverage, but it’s your game feed at the heart of it.:
And being in that position, he said, “is a daunting, but amazing, feeling.”
Broadcasting the WBC was different from MLB Network’s usual transmissions, because it used NEP Connect as its international distribution hub. “That ensured strong 24/7 performance from the WBC Network Operations Center, while keeping MLB’s typical distributions focused on spring training,” said MLB Vice President of Broadcast Products and Services Jason Hedgcock.
Any format conversation or standard changes that were needed to connect with the international transmission were handled at distribution by NEP.
As for the biggest challenge, Dolce said that it was the need to constantly plan ahead. “Every round brought additional rights holders and equipment,” he said. “We had to be strategic on things like power and the space needed for drones, launch points and RF gear. The fiber team and I managed fiber drops around the ballpark for all the rights holders.
“We had to be diligent in making sure the proper resources were allocated and tested before anyone plugged in,” he said.
Given the enormity of the undertaking and its global reach, the crew at MLB Network is already thinking about how to heighten the approach for the next tournament.
“There’s something incredibly special about the World Baseball Classic. Each time, it gets bigger and bigger, with more people contributing all over the world,” MLB Network Senior Vice President of Remote Events Tommy Guidice said. “We’re proud of the content we were able to produce.”
“By integrating real-time prediction, gamification, and augmented reality into live broadcasts, baseball can evolve from a passive viewing experience into a dynamic, participatory platform,” he added. “The financial upside is significant. A traditional passive viewer, monetized primarily through advertising, may generate between $1 and $3 per game.
By contrast, an actively engaged fan, participating in prediction mechanics, interacting with live data, and engaging with gamified elements, can generate from $8 to $25 per game through a combination of extended engagement, microtransactions and targeted sponsorship integration, according to Coleman.
“Once you layer in prediction and interactivity, you’re no longer monetizing attention, you’re monetizing participation,” he said.
That means brands like T-Mobile are moving beyond traditional signage and broadcast spots, instead focusing on integrated digital experiences that provide tangible value to fans, be it through exclusive access, rewards or enhanced connectivity. At the same time, betting and prediction markets are becoming increasingly central to the viewing experience, driving deeper engagement and longer watch times, while opening new monetization pathways for leagues and partners alike.
Of course, artificial intelligence is key to this developing market. “It’s poised to accelerate all of these trends,” Coleman said, “especially considering that, within the next five years, the concept of a single, linear broadcast may give way to fully-personalized viewing environments.”
Imagine fans being able to choose their own commentators, tailor camera angles and receive real-time predictive insights, with highlights instantly generated by AI systems. The highlights would then be distributed across platforms in seconds, while data overlays transforming every pitch into an interactive moment.
The race to build this new landscape is underway, as technology giants such as Apple and Amazon have the infrastructure and design capabilities to reimagine the viewing experience, while platforms like YouTube continue to dominate in creator-driven distribution.
Yet the most disruptive innovation may come from companies operating above the broadcast layer, like FansXR, that “enhance existing [game] feeds with interactive and immersive capabilities,” said Coleman, and “that blend content, community, data and commerce into a unified ecosystem.”
For MLB, the path forward is clear but challenging. “The league must evolve beyond its legacy as a broadcast-driven product and embrace a future defined by interactivity, personalization and direct fan relationships,” Coleman said. “The MLB-ESPN deal is only the beginning of that transformation.”
Hawk-Eye Takes the Field
After trying out the new ball-strike system in Minor League Baseball in 2025, as well as in its last two spring training sessions, Major League Baseball has taken the next step in its technology evolution.
So with the start of the 2026 regular season, it’s gotten real: the Automated Ball-Strike System, powered by Sony’s Hawk-Eye technology, which uses images from advanced cameras that are triangulated and combined to create a 3D image of the ball’s trajectory, has officially made it to The Show.
While the technology represents progress, it’s not meant to violate the tradition of the game: the rules still empower the home plate umpire to call balls and strikes, while the Hawk-Eye collects data from 12 cameras set up around the diamond from a set strike zone for each player, depending on height ratio.
With the ABS system, the pitcher, catcher or batter can challenge up to two calls per game (each team gets two and retains them if the challenge is successful), with data from Hawk-Eye available to determine the exact location of any pitch that’s in question. Then the results of the review, which takes about 15 seconds, is immediately displayed on live video and the scoreboard.
The technology, created by Hawk-Eye Innovations, which Sony acquired in 2011 from Mark Getty (the son of Sir Paul Getty), has been used in other sports such as soccer and tennis, and it is a core part of Sony’s sports business. MLB has been using Hawk-Eye’s SMART replay as part of its video decision systems since 2014 and as part of its play analysis service in 2020.
Five of the 12 cameras have high frame rates that specialize in bat and pitch tracking; in 2023, MLB upgraded those cameras from 100 frames per second to 300 fps.
The system dovetails with MLB’s use of other concepts, like Statcast, in its growing data toolbox. The use of the ABS and the Hawk-Eye technology may delete some entertaining verbal interludes from MLB games, but it will certainly temper arguments over ball or strike calls.
That’s important, given that a 2019 study from “The Journal of Sports Engineering” divulged that umpires miss about 14% of ball and strike calls, with fatigue being a key reason.
But if the numbers from the recently concluded spring training provide a solid barometer of what to expect, the impact of ABS and the Hawk-Eye is hard to dispute. In 288 games played with the ABS in use, there were an average of 4.1 challenges per game, according to MLB. Calls were overturned 52.2% of the time, and challenges added 13.8 seconds to the game’s official time, on average.
Not surprisingly, catchers had the greatest success, overturning pitches 56% of the time, compared to 50% for hitters and 41% for pitchers. Full counts prompted challenges more than any other count; players challenged least often on 3-0. But the higher the leverage of the count, the less successful the challenges were.
Hopefully, the new system will work for all parties without encroaching on the competition. During its testing process in the minors, MLB considered implementing ABS on every pitch. However, after much discussion and trial, it was decided that its current setup was the most effective approach.
