DELRAY BEACH, FLA. — The Major League Baseball team based in the Tampa-St. Petersburg market that intends to stay there, once a new stadium agreement is finally reached, can celebrate another agreement of importance — it now has a limited over-the-air broadcast agreement in place with Hearst Television.
Hearst stations in four Florida television markets will carry a small package of Tampa Bay Rays games during the 2026 season.
A total of 10 games will be seen, including the Rays’ April 6 home opener against the Chicago Cubs in a rebuilt Tropicana Field, which was inoperable across the 2025 season due to hurricane-related wind damage suffered in 2024.
In the Tampa-St. Petersburg DMA, unaffiliated WMOR-TV will air the games; the channel is widely distributed across the sprawling market and can be seen on cable systems in such distant locales as Sebring, Fla.
Additionally, WESH-2 and sibling WKCF “CW18” in Orlando will carry games, as will a digital multicast channel aligned with WPBF-25 in the West Palm Beach market that’s home to MeTV. RBR+TVBR is able to access this WPBF subchannel through prime channel placement on Hotwire Fision cable TV service in the West Palm Beach DMA.
Furthermore, Hearst’s recently acquired WBBH-20 and shared services partner WZVN “ABC7” will air games through a Heroes & Icons-aligned digital multicast channel for Southwest Florida. Hearst manages WZVN on behalf of Montclair Communications.
The arrangement with the Rays follows an agreement in Tampa and Orlando that allows Hearst stations to air 10 Orlando Magic games as a simulcast during the 2025-26 regular season through partnerships that include the flailing FanDuel Sports Network Florida.
The Rays also comes at a time when the NAB is pushing a message that live and local over-the-air TV should be the outlet for pro sports, as subscription video-on-demand hubs including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV snag MLB rights agreements and are putting games in a walled silo requiring a cover charge, if you will. In conversations with RBR+TVBR, this, to the NAB, differs from the rise of regional sports networks on cable TV and snatching MLB broadcast rights, seen across the 1990s.
For Hearst Television VP of Programming Shannon Coggins, “This partnership combines the Rays’ outstanding popularity and brand with Hearst Television’s powerful array of stations throughout Central and South Florida, one of many strong regional concentrations across our national footprint of nearly three dozen stations. Local broadcast television remains the ideal platform for sports organizations to connect with fans at scale.”
The games to be televised are (all times Eastern):
Monday, April 6, 4 p.m. vs. Chicago Cubs on WMOR, CW18, WPBF’s MeTV and Gulf Coast ABC
Friday, April 24, 7 p.m. vs. Minnesota on WMOR, WESH 2, WPBF’s MeTV and Gulf Coast H&I
Friday, May 8, 7 p.m. at Boston on WMOR, WESH 2, WPBF’s MeTV and Gulf Coast ABC
Sunday, May 24, 1:30 p.m. at New York Yankees on WMOR, CW18, WPBF’s MeTV and Gulf Coast NBC
Friday, June 5, 7 p.m. at Miami on WMOR, WESH 2, WPBF’s MeTV and Gulf Coast H&I
Friday, June 19, 7 p.m. vs. Washington on WMOR, WESH 2, WPBF’s MeTV and Gulf Coast H&I
Friday, July 17, 7 p.m. at Boston on WMOR, WESH 2, WPBF’s MeTV and Gulf Coast ABC
Thursday, July 23, 3 p.m. at Toronto on WMOR, CW18, WPBF’s MeTV and Gulf Coast ABC
Sunday, August 9, 4 p.m. at Seattle on WMOR, CW18, WPBF’s MeTV and Gulf Coast ABC
Wednesday, August 12, 3 p.m. at the Athletics on WMOR, CW18, WPBF’s MeTV and Gulf Coast ABC