As the 2026 World Series wraps up, Major League Baseball (MLB) has a gameplan to engage family audiences and future fans in the offseason. A new partnership with the ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) platform HappyKids, which began in August, aims to expand MLB’s reach, providing kids and families with year-long baseball viewing.

Under the partnership, MLB Clubhouse, MLB’s roster of youth-focused programming, runs on HappyKids, making it the first major sports league collaboration for the AVOD outlet.

“Partnering with HappyKids allows us to expand the distribution of MLB Clubhouse, and reach young audiences who may not otherwise encounter MLB content through our traditional channels,” said Gordon Lessersohn, MLB’s senior director of youth content strategy and initiatives.

MLB Clubhouse

The sports organization launched MLB Clubhouse at the beginning of the 2026 season as a standalone kids content platform, according to Lessersohn. MLB designed the programming to introduce a new generation to baseball and softball with appearances from today’s stars and animated stories.

“The platform features original content spanning animation, player storytelling, highlights, education, and creativity, giving young audiences new ways to connect with the game and its personalities,” said Lessersohn.

MLB will keep adding programming to build out MLB Clubhouse’s lineup of original animated series, behind-the-scenes player features, game highlights, and other entertaining and educational content.

“Whether it’s an ‘artsy kid’ discovering ‘MLB Art Club,’ an animation fan drawn to the stop-motion and characters of ‘The Doug Out!,’ or a parent co-viewing an inspirational story from ‘No Easy Outs,’ the partnership helps us connect with new audiences in authentic and engaging ways,” Lessersohn said.

AVOD approach

MLB’s presence on HappyKids gives baseball more visibility to families who watch TV outside traditional channels.

• HappyKids boasts 800 million monthly impressions, and 85% of viewing is driven by family co-viewing, according to HappyKids’ owner Future Today.

Streaming is also claiming a bigger share of live sports viewing as family streaming options grow their audiences.

• US digital live sports watchers are expected to grow while live sports viewers overall remain relatively flat, reaching 146.6 million of 167.0 million total live sports viewers by 2030, per EMARKETER’s forecast.

“While young baseball fans know they can find highlights and other content on MLB.com and our social platforms, HappyKids gives us an opportunity to meet kids where they already consume entertainment and introduce them to different aspects of the game,” said Lessersohn.

“Sports fandom starts young, and increasingly, it starts in fragmented places,” said David Di Lorenzo, senior vice president of content acquisitions and partnerships at Future Today. “In today’s world it's not through appointment viewing on a single network anymore. It's clips, it's highlights, it's a player's personality coming through on a screen at home. Our goal with sports programming is to make sure HappyKids is one of those places where that discovery happens, in a format and environment built specifically for kids and families rather than adapted from an adult broadcast.”

Youth audience rally

The HappyKids partnership builds on MLB’s momentum in growing a youth audience.

• MLB has seen a 23% YoY increase among fans ages 2 to 11, according to the organization.

“We’d attribute the growth in kids’ viewership to several factors including MLB’s investment in youth engagement and our continued efforts to make the game and our content more accessible and appealing to younger audiences,” said Lessersohn.

Other factors include rule changes made in 2023 to speed up the game, as well as MLB’s compelling crop of young stars, such as Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge, according to Lessersohn.

Additionally, the league supports youth sports and community events through its PLAY BALL initiative.

Involvement with youth sports is important for sports organizations and brands alike.

• Sports parents rate youth sports sponsorships as more likely to capture their attention than any other sponsorship channel, including pro sports and TV ads, per a November and December 2025 survey conducted by sponsorship agency Priority Partnerships and YouGov Sport.

HappyKids gives MLB a digital channel in its broader push to grow a youth audience, alongside rule changes to speed the game, a crop of young stars, and its PLAY BALL initiative.