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Sports fans of a certain age can readily recall NBC‘s coverage of the Major League Baseball playoffs regularly pre-empting the network’s “Must-See TV” primetime lineup in the 1990s.

While today’s ratings and programming landscape has changed dramatically in the intervening decades, this year’s playoffs (starting Tuesday) are shaping up as a back-to-the-future milestone for NBC Sports. Its exclusive coverage of the wild card round (which aired on ESPN and ABC from 2022 to ’25) will deliver boosts to the broadcast network and streaming flagship Peacock.

Four games a day, starting at 2 p.m., 5 p.m., 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. ET, will be carried on Tuesday and Wednesday. Depending on the status of each best-of-three series, Thursday will see between one and four games before later playoff rounds shift to Turner and Fox. Viewership of MLB has been on the rise, with all rights holders seeing improvement over 2025 levels through the second half of the season. Last year’s World Series comeback by the L.A. Dodgers against the Toronto Blue Jays benefited from going the maximum seven games, but its average of 15.71 million viewers a game was the best for any Series since 2017, demonstrating the sport’s recent momentum.

Two of the Tuesday and Wednesday games (at 2 and 8) will air on NBC, with the other two airing on cable TV’s NBC Sports Network. If series move to a deciding third game on Thursday, NBC will air between one and three games, depending on where things stand. It’s a step up for broadcast TV compared with recent years, when only one game per day aired on ABC and extends a pendulum swing back to broadcast for the sport, whose entire pre-World series playoffs in 2019 aired on cable TV except for one game.

Peacock will stream every inning of the wild card round, between eight and 12 games. It will be the latest injection of live sports in a year that has already seen the Winter Olympics, the Super Bowl, NBA and NHL playoff games, and Spanish-language World Cup coverage. The streaming service ended June with 48 million subscribers after adding 2 million in the second quarter, which included Love Island USA and the start of the World Cup. It also increased prices in August during the runup to college football and NFL season, with MLB playoffs and the NBA not much farther down the line.

Six years after launch, Peacock finally turned a profit in the second quarter. NBCU Media Chairman Matt Strauss said live sports has been a key part of the company “playing to our strengths” in streaming.

NBCU reached a 3-year rights deal with MLB worth a reported $600 million in November 2025. “We are excited to reignite NBC Sports’ storied Major League Baseball history through this comprehensive and innovative partnership that will honor the past and create new traditions,” NBC Sports President Rick Cordella said at the time.

All wild card series have used the best-of-three format since 2022, replacing the prior set-up that pitted select lower-seeded teams against each other in a single-elimination game.

NBCU not only has more wild card games to work with; it also got lucky this year with the markets and teams represented in the kickoff to the postseason. Two longtime rivalries will be renewed, with the Boston Red Sox taking on the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies playing the Atlanta Braves. The other series also feature major markets and marquee teams, as the Chicago White Sox face the Houston Astros and the Chicago Cubs battle the San Diego Padres.

The presence of both the Cubs and the White Sox is just the fourth time that both Chicago teams have made the playoffs in the same year. The last time was in the Covid-altered 2020 season. Before that, the teams both made it in 2008 and when they dueled in the 1906 World Series (which was won by the White Sox).

The Astros are also the first team in MLB history to finish a full 162-game regular season without a winning record and still make the playoffs. Houston had 81 wins and 81 losses.

During a media conference call on Monday, play-by-play announcer Jason Benetti, analysts Anthony Rizzo and Joey Votto, and senior producer Matt Borzello talked about their approach to the wild card games. One feature similar to those incorporated into NBA and NHL telecasts is “Inside the Pitch,” in which players and former players positioned next to the field break down the action.

The combination of physical proximity and playing experience allows the broadcasters to “pick up on things like the conversations players are having that don’t reach the broadcast booth,” Rizzo said. Vatto said he and Rizzo pick up on the “little nuances” and the “tendencies and mannerisms” in a way they hope can benefit the viewer.