Royals’ 2016 opener against the Mets will be on a Sunday night on ESPN

The Royals ended the 2015 season playing the Mets in a night game on national television.

They will open the 2016 season the same way.

Major League Baseball announced Thursday that the Royals’ season opener was moving up a day to Sunday, April 3. It will be at 7:35 p.m. on ESPN as part of a baseball tripleheader. The Cardinals and Pirates, the teams with the two best records in baseball this year, will play at 12:05 p.m. in Pittsburgh. That game will be on ESPN.

The Blue Jays will play the Rays in St. Petersburg, Fla., at 3:05 p.m. That game will be on ESPN2.

Then comes the main event: a World Series rematch between the Royals and Mets at Kauffman Stadium.

The opener was originally scheduled for Monday, April 4. An off-day was scheduled for April 5, with the conclusion of the two-game series with the Mets scheduled for April 6 before another scheduled off day April 7 before a three-game home series against the Twins on April 8-10. All of those dates are subject to change.

This April 3 game will be the first time the Royals will be host to a season-opening night game.

The announcement was made Thursday by Commissioner Rob Manfred at the conclusion of MLB’s quarterly owners meetings.

This story was originally published November 19, 2015 at 2:23 PM with the headline "Royals’ 2016 opener against the Mets will be on a Sunday night on ESPN."