General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

MLB Sunday Leadoff

MLB Sunday Leadoff is a weekly Major League Baseball television package featuring one exclusive live game on Sunday mornings or early afternoons, produced by NBC Sports and carried primarily on the streaming service Peacock since its debut on May 8, 2022.¹ The package was created to place a marquee game in a window before other Sunday baseball begins, with the featured game holding an exclusivity window while it airs.² Its home has changed twice: Peacock carried it in 2022 and 2023, The Roku Channel carried it free in 2024 and 2025, and it returned to Peacock and NBCSN in 2026 under NBCUniversal's new three-year rights agreement.³^•⁴

Key fact	Detail
Debut	May 8, 2022: Chicago White Sox at Boston Red Sox from Fenway Park at 11:30 a.m. ET, streamed on Peacock and simulcast on NBC¹
Format	One exclusive game per Sunday, 18 per season, with NBC Sports-produced pregame and postgame shows¹
Exclusivity window	In 2022, the Leadoff game was the only live MLB game scheduled until 1:30 p.m. ET²
Rights history	Peacock 2022–23; The Roku Channel (free) 2024–25; Peacock and NBCSN from 2026 under a three-year NBCUniversal deal³^•⁴
Access in 2026	A Peacock Premium subscription is required; most games are simulcast on NBCSN; games are blacked out on MLB.TV in the United States but carry no international blackout restrictions⁵
Booth style	Play-by-play announcer joined by analysts with ties to each participating team, a format carried over from the package's first season⁶

Format and broadcast approach

Each week the package presents a single game produced by NBC Sports, preceded and followed by studio shows on Peacock.¹ In the inaugural season, the game was scheduled as the exclusive home of live MLB action until 1:30 p.m. Eastern on the Sundays Peacock carried it, and start times ran at 11:30 a.m. ET for the first six weeks and noon ET thereafter.²

Announcing setup. The package's signature production choice is a booth built around the day's teams. In 2022, play-by-play announcer Jason Benetti was joined each week by an analyst from each of the two clubs playing; the debut game featured Kevin Youkilis of NESN and Steve Stone of NBC Sports Chicago, Benetti's usual partner on White Sox broadcasts.⁶ Ahmed Fareed hosted the pregame and postgame shows and served as in-game reporter.⁷ The debut broadcast also included graphical and musical callbacks to NBC's baseball coverage of the 1970s and 1980s, and Vin Scully, NBC's lead baseball voice from 1983 to 1989, narrated the inaugural intro.⁶^•⁸ In the 2026 season, Matt Vasgersian handles play-by-play for many games, again working with analysts associated with the teams involved, with Caroline Pineda as sideline reporter.⁹

Peacock years, 2022 and 2023

Peacock and NBC Sports announced the package's name and logo on April 13, 2022, scheduling 18 consecutive weeks of games beginning May 8.¹ The opener, White Sox at Red Sox, streamed on Peacock and aired free on the NBC broadcast network; the remaining games streamed exclusively on Peacock for the rest of the season.¹⁰ The package continued on Peacock in 2023, with Brendan Burke later named play-by-play announcer.¹¹

Roku years, 2024 and 2025

When Peacock's deal expired after the 2023 season, MLB moved the package to Roku. On May 13, 2024, Roku announced exclusive multi-year rights, with games streaming free on The Roku Channel beginning May 19, 2024, and an exclusivity window during airtime on most Sundays.³ Viewers did not need a Roku device: the Roku Channel app was free on Amazon Fire devices, Samsung TVs, and Google TVs, and accessible at therokuchannel.com without a login, and MLB.TV subscribers could watch all 18 games blackout-free.¹²^•³ Telecasts were produced in collaboration with local broadcast teams, a shift from the Peacock model, and start times moved later: six games at 1:05 p.m. ET and two in the late afternoon at 4:10 p.m. ET.¹²^•¹³ The first Roku game was Boston Red Sox at St. Louis Cardinals.¹²

Return to NBCUniversal, 2026

As part of the media rights agreements covering the 2026 through 2028 seasons, MLB Sunday Leadoff returned to Peacock and NBCSN from The Roku Channel, with 18 late-morning start games, 17 of them Peacock/NBCSN exclusives and one, Mets-Braves on July 5, 2026, also simulcast on NBC as part of the network's all-day "Star-Spangled Sunday" presentation of all 15 MLB games.⁴ The 2026 slate runs each Sunday from May 3, when the Toronto Blue Jays visit the Minnesota Twins at 12:30 p.m. ET, through August 30, with start times ranging from noon to 4 p.m. ET.¹⁴ The Leadoff game is followed on Peacock by a live Sunday afternoon whip-around show covering action from across the league leading into Sunday Night Baseball.¹⁵

Access and blackouts

Viewing requirements have differed by rights holder. On Peacock in 2022, the opener also aired on NBC and the remaining games were Peacock-exclusive; a Peacock Premium subscription is required, and in 2026, 17 games were exclusive to Peacock and NBCSN, with one Peacock–NBC simulcast, all unavailable live on MLB.TV or MLB EXTRA INNINGS in the United States.⁵^•¹⁶^•⁴ Most 2026 games are simulcast on NBCSN, NBC Sports' cable network.⁵ The games carry no international blackout restrictions, so international MLB.TV subscribers can watch them live and on demand through their MLB.TV subscription.⁵ During the Roku years, by contrast, the games were free and available without a Roku device.¹²

Viewership

The package's audiences are measured alongside NBC's other MLB windows. During the July 5, 2026 "Star-Spangled Sunday," a rain-delayed Mets-Braves game on MLB Sunday Leadoff drew 1.9 million viewers across Nielsen (1.0 rating, 1.80 million) plus streaming viewership tracked by Adobe Analytics, while the Padres-Dodgers Sunday Night Baseball game that evening averaged 2.3 million.¹⁷ Games exclusive to Peacock are excluded from league-wide national viewership averages, as has also been the case for the streamer's NBA and college sports telecasts.¹⁸

References

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Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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