The Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals were set for a national showcase Sunday night at Busch Stadium, with the game scheduled to start at 7 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock. The broadcast was the first of 13 straight weeks of Sunday Night Baseball on the two platforms, giving one of baseball’s oldest rivalries a primetime stage.
For fans looking up the matchup, the draw was bigger than the standings. The Cubs and Cardinals came in virtually even in wins and losses, and the game carried the kind of edge that usually travels well on television. NBC also built a full presentation around it, with Bob Costas hosting the pregame show alongside Anthony Rizzo, Jason Benetti on the call with Albert Pujols and Jim Deshaies, and Rizzo again appearing during the game for Inside the Pitch analysis.
The timing mattered, too. Twenty minutes of pregame coverage were scheduled before first pitch at 7:20 p.m. ET, and Peacock was carrying the game live from St. Louis while also streaming MLB Sunday Leadoff earlier in the day with the Toronto Blue Jays and Baltimore Orioles at Noon ET. That made Sunday a full day of baseball on the platform, with the Cardinals-Cubs game as the centerpiece.
The matchup also came with a wrinkle that fit the way these games can tilt without warning. St. Louis started left-hander Matthew Liberatore, who had already led the Cardinals in strikeouts but had also given up double digit home runs so far that season. Jordan Walker had more than 40 RBI, giving the Cardinals another bat carrying real production, but the decision to put Liberatore on the mound underlined the balancing act in a game where the records were nearly matched.
That is what made this broadcast more than a schedule note. Sunday Night Baseball had moved to NBC and Peacock for the season, and the opener in St. Louis put the league’s tight NL Central race in front of a national audience right away. The next 12 weeks would follow the same primetime template, but the first one came with a rivalry game that looked close enough on paper to justify the spotlight and volatile enough to deserve it.
