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Boston Red Sox, St. Louis Cardinals to Be Shown on Roku Channel as Part of New MLB Deal

Remember the Sunday morning games on Peacock? Well, those have been replaced now by games on the Roku Channel. They begin this Sunday with the Boston Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals.

Brady Farkas

Sep 20, 2019; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; A detail view of Boston Red Sox hats and gloves at Tropicana
Sep 20, 2019; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; A detail view of Boston Red Sox hats and gloves at Tropicana / Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
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Gone are the days of the Major League Baseball Sunday morning games on Peacock, and here are the days of the Sunday games on the Roku Channel.

That's right, Major League Baseball has reached a new deal with Roku to broadcast Sunday games and more, beginning this weekend with the Boston Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals. In addition to game coverage, Roku is also gaining rights to a baseball channel and highlight packages.

Per Jacob Feldman of Sportico on social media:

Roku MLB Sunday Leadoff games seem to be official.

The first one is Red Sox vs Cardinals @ 1:05 pm ET on May 19.

The game will be available on http://therokuchannel.com for those without Roku Devices (you can also watch on The Roku Channel app on Amazon/Samsung/Google devices)

A couple of quick thoughts here:

1) This is completely unnecessary and will absolutely anger (rightly) some fans. Fans already pay for local television or streaming television packages, and now they can't watch yet another game on them. Given that the league is already putting some games on Amazon Prime and Apple TV, it's becoming increasingly difficult to get games despite paying top price for cable.

2) While annoying, this is not as intrusive as the Apple deal. Roku is a free channel on Roku televisions or is a free app on most streaming televisions. As long as you have a smart TV or a computer, you have the ability to watch. Again, not as intrusive, but still annoying.

More HERE:

The Roku Channel is widely available to stream for free, no subscription or sign-up required. Viewers can watch it on Roku devices or TVs,TheRokuChannel.com, and through the Roku app on iOS and Android devices, Amazon Fire TVs, Samsung TVs and Google TVs and other Android TV OS devices. The Roku Channel reachesU.S.households with an estimated 120 million people (Q4 2023) and has grown to become a top 10 streaming app in theU.S., according to the Nielsen Gauge Report.

3) According to the same site above, if you already pay for MLB.tv, you will be able to watch these broadcasts, which is a huge benefit for out-of-market subscribers.

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Brady Farkas
BRADY FARKAS

Brady Farkas is a baseball writer for Fastball on Sports Illustrated/FanNation and the host of 'The Payoff Pitch' podcast which can be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Videos on baseball also posted to YouTube. Brady has spent nearly a decade in sports talk radio and is a graduate of Oswego State University. You can follow him on Twitter @WDEVRadioBrady. 

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