Friday Night Baseball will debut on Apple TV+ this weekend with plenty of familiar names and faces including former ESPN personality Katie Nolan, who recently contributed to NBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympics. Nolan will be joined in the booth by lead announcer Stephen Nelson along with sideline reporter Heidi Watney (best known for hosting Quick Pitch on MLB Network) and two-time World Series champ Hunter Pence, formerly of the San Francisco Giants. They’ll call the second game of Friday night’s doubleheader between the Angels and reigning AL champion Astros.
Game 1 will feature the Mets and Nationals in a battle of NL East rivals. Melanie Newman, who made history last fall by appearing on MLB’s first all-female broadcast, will handle play-by-play duties with Hannah Keyser of Yahoo Sports and former MLB outfielder Chris Young both on the call as analysts. Studio host Lauren Gardner will helm Apple’s pre and postgame coverage alongside a rotating team of analysts led by ex-big-leaguers Carlos Peña, Cliff Floyd and Yonder Alonso.
In evolving with the times, MLB has fully embraced the streaming age with more games broadcast on digital platforms than ever before. NBC will begin streaming weekly Sunday morning games on Peacock, while the Yankees, in an unprecedented move that could change the broadcast landscape for years to come, will air 21 games exclusively on Amazon Prime this season. Though Apple TV+ usually requires a paid subscription ($4.99 a month), MLB games will be available free of charge for anyone with internet access. That applies to all devices including laptops, smartphones, tablets and gaming consoles.
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