How will out-of-market SF Giants fans be impacted by MLB.TV changes?

Last year, it was announced that ESPN would be acquiring the rights to MLB.TV. For many out of market SF Giants fans, this raised a lot of questions about how this would impact their ability to watch games.

It seems the changes are not as drastic as was initially feared. For fans who already have a subscription to MLB.TV, that subscription should be renewed automatically as per usual with no additional steps required.

However, it seems that buying the package through ESPN is an additional option for fans if they do not have MLB.TV. All of the intricacies are laid out in this helpful article.

Out-of-market SF Giants fans should not have too much trouble watching games in 2026

ESPN seems to be dipping its toe into the bundle game more and is trying to broaden its reach as they already have new services like ESPN Unlimited that they are trying to get going.

The streaming landscape has become so convoluted and complex that it is hard to keep track of things so it is nice that things are not being completely upended for MLB.TV users.

It should be noted that in-market Giants fans will have the option to stream games through GIANTS.TV if they have cut the cord and more information can be found on that here.

Another option for out-of-market Giants fans is to add NBC Sports Bay Area as part of an existing Peacock subscription.

It's a little bit confusing, but at least there are a number of options for fans to watch Giants games no matter where they are located.

With spring training approaching, we will learn more about which games NBC Sports Bay Area will broadcast. In recent years they have cut back on the number of Cactus League games they will broadcast likely due to the costs involved, but hopefully the team will televise a decent number of Giants games this spring.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the era of streaming. Cord-cutting has harmed NBC Sports Bay Area as well as the Giants because as people turn away from cable that means less money for NBC Sports Bay Area and the Giants have a financial stake in that enterprise.

Of course, to complicate everything even further, if you want to watch the first Giants regular season game of the year, you will not need any of the services mentioned previously in this article. Instead, you will need a Netflix subscription. Isn't streaming great?