With the 2026 MLB season just a few months away, the Washington Nationals found a new TV and streaming home. The MLB and the team have officially pulled the curtain back on Nationals.TV, the franchise’s new local TV and streaming home for the upcoming season.
Under the arrangement, MLB will produce and distribute the club’s local broadcasts, offering in-market streaming on the MLB app and carriage on “select” cable and satellite providers. The league says fans will be able to watch the club’s games all year with no blackouts. Pricing and subscription tiers will be released at a later date. If you want alerts about subscriptions or launches, MLB directs fans to sign up at nats.com/Watch.
“Today’s announcement represents a new chapter for Washington Nationals baseball,” said Managing Principal Owner Mark D. Lerner. “We are excited to have already begun work with the talented team at MLB, and the collaboration is off to a strong start as we work together to elevate the viewing experience with world-class broadcasts across television and streaming.”
The Nats’ join the Diamondbacks, Guardians, Mariners, Padres, Rockies, and Twins as clubs whose games are produced and distributed by the MLB.
What Nationals.TV Means for Fans
In-market streaming on day one: Nationals games will be available through the MLB direct-to-consumer platform (the MLB App) for in-market viewers. Cord cutters who want to watch games without a traditional RSN subscription.
Cable and satellite carriage coming: MLB says games will also be distributed on select cable/satellite channels, so traditional viewers shouldn’t be left in the dark. Exact channel partners and subscription pricing will be announced later.
“Partnering with MLB offers us several new opportunities that will greatly improve the on-air product, including technological enhancements, the ability to work more closely with our broadcasters, and create added opportunities for our valued corporate partners. We’re thrilled to be able to offer the kind of presentation that our dedicated fans across the entire Mid-Atlantic region deserve.”
The Nats Say Goodbye to MASN
The Nationals’ split from MASN didn’t happen overnight. A long legal fight between the Nationals and the Baltimore Orioles over MASN’s ownership and rights-fee formula stretched back years. As part of that process, the teams and MASN worked through arbitration and settlements that kept the Nats on MASN through 2025, but left the club free to pursue a new local-rights path starting in 2026. The settlement and aftermath left both teams and the regional sports ecosystem in flux and opened the door for MLB to step in and run local production for Washington’s games this season.
It’s also worth noting that MASN itself launched MASN+, a direct-to-consumer streaming product in 2025. The streamer had a few hiccups at launch, including subscribers being wrongly charged $8,999, but it was a fan-forward approach to adapt to consumer viewing habits. In a world of eroding traditional carriage bases and RSN fragmentation, the stage was set for teams and leagues to consider alternatives, like team-run channels or a partnership with MLB’s streaming platforms.
MLB’s New Look for 2026
Nationals.TV arrives in a season when MLB’s media map is undergoing significant reshuffling as it broaden distribution across streaming and broadcast platforms. Leaguewide deals announced for 2026-28 brought Netflix and NBCUniversal back into the national mix alongside ESPN and legacy broadcasters.
At the same time, a number of RSN deals and partnerships have unraveled (including the recent cancellation of MLB’s agreement with the FanDuel-branded network), highlighting why teams and MLB are experimenting with alternate distribution models.
RSNs are weakening, national rights are being restructured, and teams (or the league itself) are increasingly willing to run their own local broadcasts. Streaming and baseball broadcasts in 2026 will look a lot different than it did five years ago.
Nationals.TV packages will go on sale next month, and fans can purchase subscriptions through MLB.com or the MLB app.