Carries ESPN, Fox, FS1, TBS, MLB Network and most RSNs
DirecTV Stream ($109 per month)
Carries one out-of-market game per day (blackout restrictions apply)
ESPN Plus ($11 per month)
Like starting pitchers who throw 200 innings or more in a season, blackout restrictions in baseball are dwindling and may soon be a thing of the past. In this era of bullpens filled with flame-throwing relievers and analytics that show a pitcher facing a lineup for a third time in a game usually yields poor results, only four pitchers hit the 200-innings mark last year, down from 34 only a decade prior. And in this era of streaming, only four teams still have blackout restrictions in place that prevent their fans from streaming their games from anywhere without needing a pay-TV subscription.
For most baseball fans this season, you can subscribe to a direct-to-consumer streaming package for roughly $20 a month that will show nearly every one of your team’s games, whether you live in your team’s market or are an out-of-market fan. And the odds are good that your local team’s games are still available on a regional sports network, a TV channel you can get with cable or satellite TV or a live TV streaming service.
With more DTC options for more MLB fans, it’s getting easier to follow your favorite team. Keep reading to find out the best way to watch or stream baseball in 2025 no matter where you live or which team you follow.
Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers are favorites to repeat as World Series champions in 2025.
How to watch MLB 2025
For out-of-market fans, the best way to watch your team’s games is the same as it’s been for years: Major League Baseball’s official streaming service. MLB.TV shows almost every game of every team for the entire regular season. MLB.TV costs $150 for the season or $30 per month for a package that includes every out-of-market team. Or you can buy a single-team subscription for $130 for the season. The catch is that your local team’s games are blacked out and only available 90 minutes after the game ends.
MLB.TV subscribers also miss games that are broadcast nationally on ESPN, Fox, FS1, MLB Network and TBS as well as those that air on streaming services like Apple TV Plus and Max. These games are also blacked out on MLB.TV, which can be particularly irksome for fans of the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers and other big-market teams that are frequently selected for national broadcasts.
MLB.TV costs $150 for the season. If you’re unsure if your team will be in the pennant race come August, you can take it month by month and pay $30 per month. Those who care only about watching one team can buy a single-team option for a one-time $130 fee. As a subscriber, you can watch out-of-market games live or on demand, and the in-market (home) team with a 90-minute delay from the end of the game.
With MLB.TV, you can also listen to home and away radio broadcasts. The radio broadcasts aren’t subject to the blackout rule, so you can listen to home team games live. MLB.TV also features MLB Network and a ton of video content including classic games, baseball documentaries and old This Week in Baseball episodes.
Even if you don’t subscribe, you can still watch baseball with the MLB app. It offers one Game of the Day that anyone can stream live for free.
Read our MLB.TV review.
In-market baseball streaming for 26 of 30 teams
For the first time last year, Major League Baseball offered an in-market analog of MLB.TV for three teams: the Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies and San Diego Padres. Now, that number has increased to 10 teams with in-market streaming options available directly from MLB. These plans cost between $20 and $30 a month.
The service will let in-market fans watch most but not every game of the season, because games that are nationally broadcast on ESPN, Fox, FS1, MLB Network, TBS or Apple TV Plus will be blacked out on the service. It’s the same situation out-of-market fans run into with MLB.TV.
You can also combine one of these in-market streaming services and out-of-market MLB.TV to get access to nearly every non-national game of the season, with national broadcasts still blacked out. Pricing varies slightly by team, but the combined package generally costs around $40 per month or $200 for the season.
10 teams with DTC streaming via MLB
| Team | DTC plan via MLB | Monthly | Season | w/ MLB.TV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arizona Diamondbacks | DBACKS.TV | $20 | $100 | $200 for season |
| Colorado Rockies | ROCKIES.TV | $20 | $100 | $200 for season |
| San Diego Padres | PADRES.TV | $20 | $100 | $200 for season |
| Cleveland Guardians | CLEGUARDIANS.TV | $20 | $100 | $200 for season |
| Minnesota Twins | TWINS.TV | $20 | $100 | $200 for season |
| Oakland Athletics | ATHLETICS.TV | $20 | N/A | $40 a month |
| San Francisco Giants | GIANTS.TV | $20 | N/A | $40 a month |
| Philadelphia Phillies | PHILLIES.TV | $25 | N/A | $45 a month |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | SNLA+ | $30 | $200 | N/A |
| New York Mets | SNY | $25 | $125 | $220 for season |
In addition to the above 10 teams, there are 16 teams that offer a DTC package from their broadcast partner. Nine of these teams previously broadcast their games on the defunct Bally Sports RSN, now called FanDuel Sports Network. It offers a DTC option for these nine teams for $20 per month or $100 for the season. You can subscribe directly from FanDuel or add it to a Prime Video subscription. These FanDuel Sports Network RSN channels are also available on Fubo and DirecTV Stream. For both the DTC option or the RSN channel, you need to live in the team’s local market to access it.
9 FanDuel Sports Network teams
- Atlanta Braves: FanDuel Sports Network South/Southeast
- Cincinnati Reds: FanDuel Sports Network Ohio
- Detroit Tigers: FanDuel Sports Network Detroit
- Kansas City Royals: FanDuel Sports Network Kansas City
- Los Angeles Angels: FanDuel Sports Network West
- Miami Marlins: FanDuel Sports Network Florida
- Milwaukee Brewers: FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin
- St. Louis Cardinals: FanDuel Sports Network Midwest
- Tampa Bay Rays: FanDuel Sports Network Sun
The other seven teams offer a DTC streaming option from its broadcast partner, again in a team’s local area only.
The other 7 teams with DTC streaming in 2025
| Team | DTC offering | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Boston Red Sox | NESN 360 | $30 per month or $240 per year |
| Chicago Cubs | Marquee Sports Network | $20 per month |
| Chicago White Sox | Chicago Sports Network | $20 per month |
| New York Yankees | YES | $25 per month or $240 per year |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | SportsNet Pittsburgh | $18 per month |
| Texas Rangers | Victory Plus | $100 per year |
| Toronto Blue Jays | SportsNet | $25 per month or $200 per year |
So, who’s missing? The four teams without a DTC package are the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals on MASN, the Houston Astros on Space City Home Network and the Seattle Mariners on Root Sports Northwest. For each of these teams, in-market fans will need a pay-TV subscription that includes its RSN.
Among the five major live TV streaming services, both Fubo and DirecTV Stream offer each of these RSNs in each team’s local market. And keep in mind that in addition to an RSN, Fubo and DirecTV Stream carry most if not all of the major national TV networks — ESPN, Fox, FS1, MLB Network and TBS — that regularly televise matchups from different teams around the league.
Fubo’s $95-a-month Elite package includes RSNs for your local team’s games along with ESPN, Fox, FS1 and MLB Network for national broadcasts. It lacks TBS and TruTV, however, for Tuesday night games. You can use its channel lookup tool to see which local channels and RSNs are available where you live.
Read our Fubo review.
DirecTV Stream’s Choice plan costs $109 a month when you factor in RSN fees and includes the most RSN channels for baseball. It carries every local RSN for every team except those for the Blue Jays and Phillies. It also includes ESPN, TBS, Fox, FS1 and MLB Network for national broadcasts. Check out which local networks and RSNs it offers.
Read our DirecTV Stream review.
Each live TV streaming service offers a free trial, allows you to cancel anytime and requires a solid internet connection. Looking for more information? Check out our live TV streaming services guide.
How to stream national baseball broadcasts
A handful of streaming services have deals with MLB to carry select games exclusively this season. Most of these require a separate streaming service, which can be annoying if your favorite team is on a national broadcast and you aren’t already a subscriber to the service that’s streaming it. The one exception is the Saturday games on Fox and FS1, which require a pay-TV service in order to watch, on either TV channel itself, but also to authenticate to stream on the Fox Sports app.
Apple TV Plus costs $10 a month and, like last year, will stream a baseball doubleheader every Friday night this season. Apple’s MLB games will be free from blackout restrictions, so you’ll be able to watch them no matter where you live and which teams are playing. The games are exclusive to Apple TV Plus, however, which means you won’t find them on your local RSN if your local team is playing.
A full schedule of Apple’s MLB broadcasts through the end of June can be found here.
Read our Apple TV Plus review.
Roku returns for its second year of Sunday baseball streaming. It will show 18 games on Sundays from mid-May to early September. Dubbed MLB Sunday Leadoff, Ruku’s baseball package will show one of the first games on Sundays, with some starting as early as 11:35 a.m. ET.
This free channel is available on Roku TVs and devices, a mobile app for iOS and Android, as well as on smart TVs and streaming devices running software from Samsung, Google (Google TV or Android TV) or Amazon (Fire TV).
The Max streaming service will show the TBS or TruTV broadcasts on Tuesday nights this season. The Basic with ads plan for Max costs $10 a month but starting March 30, you’ll need the ad-free Standard plan that costs $17 a month to watch live sports, including MLB games.
Read our Max review.
ESPN and MLB are parting ways after this season. Unless they strike a new deal, the 2025 campaign will be the 36th and final season of Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN. It will also mark the end of the daily MLB game available on ESPN’s stand-alone streaming service.
ESPN Plus costs $12 a month or $120 a year and streams one game nearly every day of the six-month MLB season. The catch is that your local team’s games are blacked out when they appear on ESPN Plus, similar to MLB.TV. Also, the games shown on ESPN Plus aren’t exclusive to ESPN Plus and are also available on MLB.TV.
Read our ESPN Plus review.
An MLB.TV subscription includes the ability to stream what’s on MLB Network, from its studio shows to live games. Most baseball fans want to be able to watch their favorite team night in and night out during the regular season, but for the more casual baseball viewer, there’s a standalone subscription for MLB Network.
It costs $7 a month or $70 a year, which is about half of what an MLB.TV subscription costs. That’s a lot considering that blackout restrictions apply here, too, so you can watch only out-of-market games on MLB Network.
It does include the audio feed of every game, if you like to listen to radio broadcasts of baseball games. If that describes you, then you should check out an At Bat subscription. It costs $4 a month or $30 a year and lets you listen to the home or away radio broadcasts and watch one game per day during the season. You can’t choose which game you want to watch; you’re stuck with the MLB.TV Free Game of the Day.
Yankees games on Prime Video
For Yankees fans in the team’s market, Amazon (which owns a piece of the YES Network) will once again stream 21 Yankees games on Prime Video this season, mostly on Wednesday nights. You’ll need to be a Prime member too (currently $139 per year).
These games are exclusive to Prime Video and won’t be viewable without a Prime Video account even if you pay for cable TV or the YES app. A full list of games can be found here, with the first exclusive contest set for April 2 when the Yankees host the Diamondbacks.
