What you need to know to watch Detroit Tigers on TV in 2026
Detroit ― The Tigers’ television plans for 2026 are starting to come into focus.
Starting this week, Tigers fans will be able to begin signing up for the team’s new direct-to-consumer (streaming) subscription offerings, now available under the MLB Media umbrella.
The Tigers on Monday announced pricing for streaming plans through the MLB app. For in-market customers in the Michigan region and some parts of surrounding states, a monthly subscription will cost $19.99, while an annual subscription will cost $189.99, in line with what fans were paying under the previous model through FanDuel Sports Network Detroit.
The Tigers announced last month that they are leaving FanDuel Sports Network Detroit, as the regional sports network industry continues to crater and FanDuel’s parent company appears almost certain to shutter at the end of the current NBA and NHL seasons.
The Tigers’ new television broadcast endeavor will be called Detroit SportsNet, and eventually will include the Red Wings, who, like the Tigers, are owned by the Ilitches.
The Red Wings will play out this regular season under FanDuel Sports Network Detroit, and then also will transition to the MLB Media distribution umbrella for their 2026-27 season. Next season’s Red Wings games will stream on a platform that’s still to be determined, with the subscription purchased through the MLB app. Starting next NHL season, a singular subscription will get fans access to both Tigers and Wings games.
Detroit SportsNet also will be available on linear (traditional) cable, as a standalone channel that will be available by Tigers Opening Day on March 26. That channel, like with FanDuel Sports Network Detroit, will be available through most cable companies and will cost an add-on fee to access. That cost hasn’t been announced, but should be in line with the tier pricing structure for FanDuel.
The cable channel’s content mostly will be games (Tigers this season, Red Wings starting next season), as well as pregame and postgame shows. There will be some additional content, including the Tigers’ podcast with Jason Benetti and Dan Dickerson. Otherwise, the channel otherwise is expected to be mostly dark.
Additional details on the cable channel, including specific channel numbers, will be unveiled in the coming days, as negotiations between the distributor (in this case, MLB Media) and cable companies are still ongoing.
There is no word yet on the Pistons’ future TV broadcast plans. They’re on FanDuel Sports Network Detroit.
At the conclusion of the NHL regular season, Ilitch Sports & Entertainment officially will cut all ties with FanDuel Sports Network Detroit. For fans who’ve purchased annual subscriptions with FanDuel that extend beyond the end of the NHL season, they will need to reconcile that balance directly with FanDuel.
Fans who sign up for Detroit SportsNet streaming before the start of the Major League Baseball regular season will start getting billed April 1, meaning they’ll get the first five Tigers regular-season games for free.
For additional details on in-market streaming subscriptions, fans can visit tigers.com/detroitsportsnet and DetroitRedWings.com/detroitsportsnet.
Tigers games for out-of-market fans still will be available through MLB.TV, where fans can access all MLB broadcasts for $29.99 per month and $149.99 per season.
Like in recent years, the Tigers also are planning to offer a small selection of games on over-the-air (free) television during the 2026 season, with details on those games expected in the coming weeks. The Tigers also have at least 16 games on national television/streaming this season.
The Tigers also have six more TV games scheduled for spring training; those are available to stream at no charge, by signing up for a free MLB account.
The on-air TV broadcast teams for the Tigers (Benetti and Dickerson, with Andy Dirks, Dan Petry, etc.) and Red Wings (Ken Daniels and Mickey Redmond) will remain in place as the teams make the transition to MLB Media. Under the deal with MLB Media, MLB will be the main producer of Tigers’ broadcasts, while Ilitch Sports & Entertainment will produce the Red Wings’ broadcasts starting with the 2026-27 season.
MLB Media will produce and distribute television broadcasts for at least 14 teams in 2026, accounting for nearly half of the 30-team league. The Tigers-Red Wings package deal is MLB Media’s first hockey partnership. Ilitch Sports & Entertainment views this venture as more than a one-year play, though how long-term it will be is impossible to predict, given the rapidly evolving fan-viewing landscape.
The vast majority of Tigers, Red Wings and Pistons games have broadcast on cable RSNs since the 1980s, first on PASS, and then on Fox Sports Detroit. In recent years, amid multiple sales and naming-rights deals, the teams’ games have aired on Bally Sports Detroit and, lastly, FanDuel Sports Network Detroit.
All three teams stuck with FanDuel Sports Network Detroit in 2025, despite having to take significant rights-fees cuts, worth millions of dollars, as FanDuel Sports Network’s parent company was emerging from bankruptcy. But the RSN financial picture has only gotten worse, amid continued cable cord-cutting, and parent company Main Street Sports Group recently has been missing monthly rights payments to many teams, including the three in Detroit. Unable to find a buyer for the company, Main Street began the process of heading toward a total shutdown by this spring, even preparing regional offices for closure, including in Metro Detroit.
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