How MLB Is Getting Opening Day Wrong in a Crucial 2026 Season

The MLB season is back once again in a season that is far more important than normal for the league. Baseball has recovered well from the viewership drops during the pandemic, growing in-person and on television from 2025 to 2026. 

The World Series was also the most-watched since 1992, thanks in part to Shohei Ohtani’s ability to cultivate a national market.

Growth in baseball has continually been trending in the correct direction, which is why the 2026 season will be one of the most important years in the history of the sport. Many predict that some, if not all, of the 2027 baseball season could be lost due to a workers’ strike, so they need this year to be great if they would like to retain a captive audience through what could be a lengthy work stoppage.

Having exciting playoffs is most important for growing the game, but unlike in every other sport, Opening Day is far more important to fans. There’s more pomp and circumstance when it comes to Opening Day in baseball. The teams are giving longer introductions, the games are always filled, some cities have parades, while others trot Clydesdales through their stadiums.

Opening Day needs to cater to every fan, and I feel MLB is missing the mark in a few areas this season.

My first complaint is that the standalone game to open the season is being streamed. This game should be on national TV, so we can watch two great starters go head-to-head. I think it’s lame of the league to experiment with Netflix on the first night of the year.

My bigger issue is the scheduling for the following day. First off, starting the baseball season in the middle of the week feels dumb in and of itself, but that’s more normal. My real gripe is with one game, and why they are screwing Cleveland fans.

All but two games will have their first pitch at 4:00 p.m. or earlier on Opening Day. I love that, it’s a level of tradition to play those first games as day games; however, the late game taking place between Seattle and Cleveland makes no sense. The Diamondbacks and Dodgers will have their first pitch at 5:30 PM local time. A weird time, but still not a late game for those local markets.

The nightcap on Opening Day takes place at 10:10 p.m. ET in Seattle, a time when very few Cleveland fans will be watching. Why in the world would you start the Guardians in the Pacific timezone and give them an Opening Day that ends the following day? They’re getting screwed for two straight West Coast series to start the year, a terrible way to pull their fans into the season.

However, these aren’t the only scheduling nightmares in the first series of the season. There are five different series to start the year, between teams separated by two time zones, and four of those series are separated by three time zones. Baseball is such a long season, and getting fans to buy in year-round is much harder than in any of the other four major sports. Making it as difficult as possible for fans to watch their own teams is such a poor decision from MLB. Too many games are blacked out over the course of an MLB season; there’s no reason to make the most important week of the season difficult for the fans to watch.