DirecTV Announces 9 New Channels
Finding the Major League Baseball game you want to watch in moving pictures on your screen of choice in 2026 has not been more difficult for many years, but fans of the national pastime got some good news Wednesday night.
Just in time for opening day, DirecTV announced it had come to an agreement to show games for nearly a dozen teams, much like they have in the past.
Familiar faces in (fairly) familiar places
The Cincinnati Reds, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, Seattle Mariners, St. Louis Cardinals, Tampa Bay Rays, and Washington Nationals have all been in limbo this spring as a result of Diamond Sports Group, the owner of their regional sports networks (RSNs), going through bankruptcy that began in 2023.
That season, Major League Baseball took over the broadcasting of the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres then added the Colorado Rockies in 2024 while the other teams struck new, revised deals with DSG.
RELATED: MLB The Show makers want you to play more in less time with new feature
The Cleveland Guardians, Minnesota Twins, Milwaukee Brewers and Texas Rangers left DSG for MLB prior to last season, setting off a pattern that has been followed this winter and spring by the nine teams mentioned above.
While other cable providers had already announced their plans for those teams, DirecTV customers were left to wonder just what was planned for them until this week.
Now it is known.
Where to watch your favorite team
The DirecTV-MLB collaboration is now up to 14 teams.
Here is how the new ones will appear on the channel guides for DirecTV and U-verse subscribers:
Sign of the times for pay TV
Once upon a time, finding a local team’s games was pretty easy.
If you subscribed to a cable service or had a satellite like DirecTV or DISH Network, the team in your region likely had its own channel that showed virtually every game.
With the exception of an exclusive national broadcast now and then, fans could turn to “Channel (x)” and know they would hear their familiar announcers and see their team in action.
That is no longer the case for a variety of reasons, as noted by numerous sites including The Athletic:
Just a decade ago, if you were a Yankees fan in New York, you just needed a cable subscription to watch every regular-season game and the playoffs. Now, in 2026, it could require navigating 10 networks, five (or more) subscriptions and approaching a thousand dollars to see all the team’s games if it goes deep into October.
The Athletic estimated a Yankees fan might need to spend as much as $790 to see all of the club’s games this season for example.
How things evolve in the future remains to be seen, but at least fans of teams who were in limbo for the last few months can have some certainty for 2026.