Peacock, NBC’s streaming service, is going with up-and-coming play-by-player Jason Benetti and local analysts for its exclusive late Sunday morning MLB games, The Post has learned.
Benetti, 38, is currently the voice of the White Sox and calls several sports for ESPN. He is expected to be joined by one analyst from each of the given teams that are on each week.
In Benetti, Peacock not only hired one of the better broadcasters going, but one who is pretty inspirational, as he was born with cerebral palsy.
The first game, on May 8, will feature the White Sox at the Red Sox at 11:30 a.m. on both NBC and Peacock. Benetti will work with one White Sox analyst and one Red Sox analyst. The rest of the games will only be on Peacock.
Jason Benetti (l.) will be NBC’s play-by-play voice for its Sunday MLB package. Getty ImagesThe Mets and Yankees each will play once on the Sunday morning broadcasts, which will begin at either 11:30 a.m. or noon each week. On June 5, the Yankees will host the Tigers, while on June 26, the Mets will be at the Marlins.
Since the Mets’ regional sports home, SNY, shares some common ownership with Peacock’s parent company, Comcast, it seems more plausible that Keith Hernandez or Ron Darling will be the Mets’ representative in the booth. YES doesn’t have that corporate synergy, so Peacock could go for a former Yankee who is not currently on the local telecast.
The Peacock games will be the only ones on Sundays, from their first pitch until 1:30 p.m. No other MLB game will begin until then during the length of the Peacock package, which runs through Labor Day weekend.
Jason Benetti (r.) during a White Sox broadcast with Bill Walton (l.) in 2019. APMLB fans have been inundated with streaming games this season. Apple TV+ has a new Friday night exclusive doubleheader with two separate announcing teams.
Play-by-player Melanie Newman, former MLB player Chris Young and Yahoo MLB columnist Hannah Keyser are doing the early games, while play-by-player Stephen Nelson, ex-MLB player Hunter Pence and sports comedian Katie Nolan are calling the late games. The Yankees’ game at Kansas City will be on Apple TV+ this Friday in the early window at 8 p.m.
Last week, Amazon Prime Video streamed its first of 21 exclusive Yankees games. There were some reports of people that were in the Yankees’ YES footprint who said they were unable to access the games through their Amazon Prime membership. An Amazon spokeswoman said they were aware of some issues and were working to figure it out for the next game on May 6.
