The Milwaukee Brewers were one of the last four teams standing at the end of the 2025 season. They won 97 games during the regular season — more than any other team in baseball — and secured their third consecutive NL Central division title. They have qualified for the playoffs in seven of the last eight seasons. On top of that, with Freddy Peralta still rostered, the Brewers are set to return essentially the same team that broke all kinds of records in 2025 for the 2026 season. Surely, a team of this caliber will be featured often on NBC’s slate of nationally televised games in 2026, right? Wrong.
After agreeing to a deal to return Sunday Night Baseball and several other nationally televised games to NBC in 2026, MLB unveiled which matchups have earned the prime-time slots next season last Friday. The league followed up their unveiling of NBC’s 2026 slate with the following post on the social media platform X.
NBC will air 20 games in 2026, including two Opening Day matchups and Sunday Night Baseball! pic.twitter.com/Y3sV7BP9ee
— MLB (@MLB) January 9, 2026
Something missing? To be fair, the Brewers will appear on Sunday Night Baseball once in 2026; it just so happens that their game, a September 20 tilt with the Baltimore Orioles, didn’t fit on their social media graphic. That game, however, will only be available on Peacock, NBC’s streaming platform. Even more frustrating is the fact that MLB seems to have taken for granted the fact that the Brewers will be a competitive team this year, giving them a prime-time game at the end of the season, but that acknowledgement doesn’t go far enough to grant the 2025 regular season champs multiple appearances on Sunday Night Baseball in 2026.
Brewers will make just one appearance on Sunday Night Baseball in 2026
It’s no secret that market size plays the most important role in determining the prime-time match-ups in any given MLB season, but to some extent, the league and NBC should want to prioritize putting the best teams in the brightest lights. The viewership numbers likely still favor a bad game between two big-market teams over a good game between two small-market teams, but that doesn’t make it any better for Brewers fans. If anything, it makes it worse, because no matter how good the Brewers are, they are unlikely to be rewarded with prime-time games.
That said, in addition to the September 20 Sunday Night Baseball game on Peacock, two more Brewers games will be available on the streaming service this year, but not a single Brewers game will be broadcast on NBC in 2026. Those two games are part of NBC/Peacock’s “Sunday Leadoff” series and include an away game against the Pittsburgh Pirates at 11:00 a.m. CT on Sunday, July 12, and an away game against the Los Angeles Angels at 2:00 p.m. CT on Sunday, August 2.
The language is vague in regard to NBC’s “Star-Spangled Sunday,” which involves the network broadcasting every game on July 4. An article from David Adler of MLB.com notes that the games “will be presented nationally on NBC’s platforms,” which leaves the possibility open that the Brewers’ Independence Day match-up against the Arizona Diamondbacks could be on Peacock as well.
At a time when Milwaukee’s TV deal for the 2026 season is up in the air, having the security that at least a couple of games would be nationally televised this season would have been a nice development for Brewers fans. Instead, we are told that a Peacock subscription will be necessary if we hope to watch every Brewers game in 2026.