Sunday’s broadcast of the Texas Rangers-St. Louis Cardinals game on the Roku Channel ended up being a disaster for many fans.
Viewers took to social media to complain about the Roku broadcast of Sunday’s Rangers-Cardinals game at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Tex. Many reported that Roku skipped game action multiple times during the latter stages of the contest in order to show extended commercial breaks.
The first reported instance occurred with two outs in the top of the seventh inning. The Rangers made a pitching change, turning to Hoby Milner out of the bullpen. However, viewers did not see the final out of the half-inning recorded by Milner and instead reported seeing a continuous ad break until the bottom of the seventh inning (at which point the final out of the top half was only shown via replay).
Then it happened again in the bottom of the seventh inning. With two outs, it was the Cardinals who made a pitching change (bringing in Steven Matz). Once again, viewers reported that the Roku broadcast failed to air the final out of the inning by Matz in real time, instead substituting it for another extended commercial break until the top of the eighth inning.
But wait there’s more! Astoundingly enough, a third instance (and perhaps the most egregious one of all) occurred in the bottom of the eighth inning. The Rangers had two runners on with nobody out at the time, so the Cardinals decided to make another pitching change (putting in Roddery Munoz).
And yep, you guessed it! Roku once again went into an elongated ad break … only this time around, they missed actual runs being scored. Munoz allowed both of his inherited runners to cross the plate … all while Roku was still in commercial. Thus, viewers saw the score at 4-1 when the pitching change was made and then suddenly at 6-1 when the Roku broadcast returned from its ad break.
Take a look at some of the outraged posts on X by viewers of the Roku broadcast.
Roku's MLB broadcast is terrible. Both teams changed pitchers with 2 outs in the 7th inning and they skipped the last at-bat entirely and ran extra long commercial breaks until the start of the next half inning. Really unacceptable.
— willballins (@willforthrill) June 1, 2025
Never do games on Roku again we are literally missing the game @MLB
— marissa (@_marissawhitney) June 1, 2025
Is anyone else’s Roku channel just showing ads instead of the cardinals/Rangers game in the 8th inning? You suck @TheRokuChannel
— Pat E. Melt (@oceans_elements) June 1, 2025
@TheRokuChannel @MLB @Rangers Roku has now missed multiple full at-bats. The game went away at 4-1 and came back at 6-1. We've missed an entire Seager at-bat as well. What the heck????
— Wannabe (@S2_Wannabe) June 1, 2025
Roku is now doing this as a bit, right? Is someone hitting the wrong buttons in the truck? What is going on?
— Brandon Kiley (@BKSportsTalk) June 1, 2025
Roku took over as Major League Baseball’s partner for their “MLB Sunday Leadoff” package in 2024. As such, they broadcast one matinee MLB game every Sunday, reportedly paying $10 million annually to do so. The games that are broadcast on Roku are simulcast on MLB.tv as well.
We recently heard that MLB could end up with a big-name new partner when it comes to their “Sunday Night Baseball” package as their longtime deal with ESPN is set to expire after the 2025 season. But when it comes to their current partner for “MLB Sunday Leadoff” in Roku, it looks like there is a lot of room for improvement.
