Major League Baseball’s playoffs are off and running, with all of the action airing across NBC and Peacock.
And to celebrate NBC’s first baseball postseason broadcasts since 2000, the network built a literal “House of (Wild)Cards” at 30 Rockefeller Center in New York.
The 25-foot structure is the centerpiece for a variety of fan activations around Tuesday and Wednesday’s blocks of baseball games that look to recreate some of the collective watching excitement in New York over the summer.
Between the New York Knicks’ historic run to an NBA championship and the World Cup, the city was full of watch parties for much of the summer. With the New York Yankees among the eight teams in action during the wildcard round, the assumed hope is that an activation like this can help spur some of that same enthusiasm from New York’s now-famed summer of celebration.
Details On The House Of (Wild)Cards
The card structure itself is built out of 26 custom, oversized trading cards highlighting one of the four wildcard round matchups. Topps will be giving away sample MLB trading cards to fans in attendance and there will be giant screens set up in 30 Rock for fans to catch the postseason action over the course of the first two days (which each feature four games).
This year’s wildcard matchups are filled with high-profile teams in both the American and National League, including two repeats from the 2025 wildcard round.
The Yankees face the rival Boston Red Sox once again, with the Yankees serving as the home team as they did last year. Plus the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres square off once more, this time from California (the series was in Chicago in 2025).
In the other NL game, the Atlanta Braves host their NL East rival, the Philadelphia Phillies. And in the AL, the Chicago White Sox visit the Houston Astros in a rematch of the 2005 World Series (which the White Sox won in four games).
MILAN, ITALY – FEBRUARY 22: Jack Hughes #86 of Team United States celebrates after their gold-medal win during the Men’s Gold Medal match between Canada and the United States on day 16 of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic games at Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena on February 22, 2026 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
NBC’s Sports Momentum Continues
It’s been a momentous 12 months for NBC, as the network has played host to a variety of major sporting events, from the return of the NBA last fall, to the Winter Olympics, Super Bowl and now this wildcard round.
While Fox and Disney have seemingly duked it out for sports supremacy, especially on the college front, NBC has managed to carve out a unique and eventized niche centered around premier primetime properties.
Between college football, the NFL, NBA and MLB, NBC has much of the year’s Sunday night sports slots locked down year-round. So far in 2026, MLB games are No. 12 by TV ad reach among all live programming on NBC, according to data provided by iSpot.
If this wildcard round watch-party setup is a precursor for more to come from NBC – there are certainly opportunities with New York having significant numbers of Notre Dame and Big Ten fans, plus the network’s upcoming NFL and NBA games this fall – it could make for some exciting new traditions for New Yorkers.
Logistically, it may be tougher to extend that to other markets, or extend it to games that don’t involve New York teams. But at least in the immediate term, the activation should provide some communal opportunities to watch baseball when in recent times, the sport has seemed to lack national import in favor of more regional importance.
This article was originally published on Forbes.com