Roughly 48 hours after the Royals expressed their desire to keep FanDuel Sports Kansas City as their broadcast partner, the team has moved in a new direction.
The Royals announced their games will be produced and distributed by Major League Baseball on the newly dubbed Royals.TV for the 2026 season. Fans will be able to watch on cable, satellite television and the MLB app.
Media reporter John Ourand said the Royals are one of six teams that will have Major League Baseball take over their broadcasts. The others are the Cardinals, Brewers, Marlins, Rays and Reds.
Cullen Maxey, who is the Royals’ president of business operations, said Saturday the team needed an assurance that FanDuel Sports KC would be able to broadcast games in the 2026 season without interruption.
That apparently didn’t happen.
The Main Street Sports Group, which owns FanDuel Sports KC, could go out of business in a matter of days if a deal with DAZN is not completed. The Royals terminated their 2026 deal with Main Street Sports in January but had hoped to work out a new deal that would have kept games on FanDuel Sports KC.
Other teams previously had MLB take over their broadcasts, notably the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks.
“FanDuel Sports Network is continuing to broadcast NBA and NHL games, and we appreciate the leagues’ engagement in ongoing discussions on our go-forward plans,” Main Street Sports Group said in a statement.
“We appreciate the relationships we have had with our MLB partners and fans over many years, and we wish them the best.”
What it means for Royals fans
The Royals leaving FanDuel Sports KC could be a good thing for fans. They’ll still be able to watch games on cable, but it will be through an MLB channel. And games will still be available to be streamed locally as well as nationally.
Maxey explained what fans can expect at Saturday’s Royals Rally.
“If you are DirecTV, if you are a Spectrum customer, you’ll be viewing it in the same ways that you did before, because we will have channels there,” Maxey said. “And I think most markets that have gone through this, MLB actually will probably expand what they have. They have many, many relationships with linear distributors.
“And so I would imagine distribution actually goes up slightly. But then if you are a streamer, which a lot of us are now, MLB would launch a Royals.TV platform.”
The Royals broadcast team will remain the same: Ryan Lefebvre and Rex Hudler will call games, and the pregame and postgame shows with Joel Goldberg and Jeff Montgomery also will likely be unchanged.
Fans in the Royals home television territory (Kansas, Arkansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma and most of Missouri) will be able to purchase a Royals.TV package through MLB.com or the MLB App for $99.99 per year. The Royals said those subscriptions will be available later this month.
Here is the Royals’ home television territory. Courtesy of the Kansas City Royals
Out-of-market fans can watch Royals games with an MLB.TV subscription for $149.99 per year.
The Royals also will have 10 games broadcast on an over-the-air network in Kansas City.
Financial implications
The downside to having MLB take control of broadcasts is the lost money from a deal the team had with Main Street Sports. That’s expected to be more than the Royals will receive from the league, which would pay the team money raised from streaming subscriptions and TV distribution fees.
“From a financial standpoint, that ship has sailed,” Maxey said. “When this thing started, and we’ve all seen this in the industry with the cord cutting and the shift in behaviors, it is really all about reach. It’s all about getting out there to as many people as possible for Royals baseball.
“It is all about not having an interruption. When we need to weigh the stability of FanDuel, (it’s) all about: Is there a risk that we have any interruption to our games? And that’s going to be the No. 1 (factor) that we need to be convinced of.”
This story was originally published February 2, 2026 at 1:06 PM.
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