Why Netflix is turning Major League Baseball's opening night into a big event

For many fans, Major League Baseball’s opening day is somewhat of an unofficial holiday. Though this year offers a different viewing experience.

Instead of turning on ESPN or a regional sports channel to catch their favorite team, there will only be one game kicking off the season, and it will be streaming exclusively on Netflix.

On Wednesday, the New York Yankees and the San Francisco Giants will face off at Oracle Park. Retired baseball stars Barry Bonds, Anthony Rizzo and Albert Pujols, led by former ESPN anchor Elle Duncan, will be in the broadcast booth.

And for one of the many Netflix touches — “Thing,” the lovable detached hand from the streamer’s Addams family spinoff “Wednesday,” will be throwing the first pitch.

It’s the latest example of a streaming platform finding its way into live sports programming. All of the major services, including Amazon Prime, Max, Peacock, Paramount+ and others, carry some combination of professional sports packages for their subscribers.

For Netflix, this marks the first time an MLB opening day game will be seen globally, as Netflix reaches nearly a billion viewers in more than 190 countries and in 50 languages.

For Gabe Spitzer, Netflix’s vice president of sports, it’s a chance for the streamer to “work together with a league to grow that audience” beyond just the die-hard sports fans. “Maybe casual fans are tuning in, or someone who’s watched a baseball documentary on Netflix thinks, ‘Oh, I’ll check out the Yankees Giants game because it’s live.’ That’s our ultimate goal,” he said.

A little over two years ago, Netflix first dipped its toes into live-streaming sports events, with the Netflix Cup, a golf tournament between PGA Tour golfers and Formula One drivers. It garnered a modest viewership of around 700,000 views in the second half of 2023.

Spitzer said the big turning point for Netflix in this arena was the November 2024 fight between former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson and YouTube influencer Jake Paul. That event attracted 60 million households globally and became the most-streamed sporting event in history, according to Netflix. The massive audience tested the technical capacity of the streaming platform, as many fans complained of buffering or losing the video feed completely.

Netflix also turned Christmas Day into an event in 2024, paying $150 million a year for the rights to stream two NFL games on the holiday. The 2025 late-afternoon game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Detroit Lions was the most-streamed NFL game in history with 27.5 million viewers, according to Nielsen.

The opening-day game is part of a larger three-year deal the league has with Netflix, which is paying $60 million annually for a package that also includes the Home Run Derby and the annual Field of Dreams game in Dyersville, Iowa. The games became available when ESPN decided to opt out of its deal (the Walt Disney Co. unit negotiated a new package that gives the network 30 games and expanded streaming rights).

The MLB events will help inform Netflix about whether to pursue a larger package when the league’s larger media rights contract, which includes the World Series on Fox, comes up for renewal after the 2028 season.

The streamer is also expected to engage in talks for a larger commitment with the NFL when the league exercises its option to reopen its media rights contract after the 2029-30 season.

But for now, the Netflix sports strategy is creating large-scale live events, which Spitzer calls “meaningful water-cooler conversation” for a global audience.

The streamer and the league worked together to make the Yankees-Giants game happen one day early and present it in prime time Wednesday night. As the sole game being played that day, Spitzer said it’s “truly the launch of the season.”

“As we continue to grow baseball around the world and reach younger fans, Netflix is an ideal partner to help us further expand the sport’s fan base with its ubiquitous streaming service,” Kenny Gersh, MLB’s executive vice president of media and business, said in a statement. “They are approaching their first-ever MLB game with great energy and creative marketing. We are excited to work with them in joining MLB’s collection of elite media partners.”

Lee Berke, a sports media consultant, understands Netflix’s venture into live sports as a way to “elevate the profile of a particular game and give it a Netflix spin — making it something you would only see on Netflix.”

“Every sport is looking now for events that can be of interest to heighten fan awareness, sponsor and distributor interest during the course of a season,” said Berke, pointing out the NBA Emirates Cup — an in-season tournament sponsored by the Dubai-owned airline — and NHL’s Four Nations Cup. “Everybody’s trying to come up with a variety of events, because they drive interest, they drive business and revenues. It sort of feeds on itself.”

As the sports industry continues to open itself up for these spectacle-driven games, it provides additional television opportunities for media giants such as Netflix, Berke said. In the end, Berke said, these games are overall beneficial to the industry.

To Berke, the only lingering fear is that game events could further fragment audiences, as different sports now span across several streaming platforms and networks. The upside is they have the potential to help sports leagues capture audience attention, maximize revenue and offset rising expenses.

“Let’s be honest, if you’re Netflix, you’re looking to attract and retain subscribers. … This is another tool in the toolbox for helping build growth and sustain subscribers,” Berke said. “The great consistent intellectual property out there that draws audiences year after year is sports, and if you find the right combination of them, it can help you drive your business.”

To aid this live sports push, Netflix recently recruited Duncan, the former anchor for ESPN “SportsCenter,” to lead Netflix’s sports coverage. At ESPN, she said, it was “a very well-oiled machine that’s been very successful” for decades with “a tried and true way” of doing things.

But as she transitions from a traditional TV network to a streaming service, Duncan’s responsibility is different. It’s no longer about serving a domestic audience of baseball superfans; she has to keep a sports-curious, global audience in mind.

“If you’re watching ESPN, chances are you’re a really die-hard sports fan, but Netflix is for everyone,” said Duncan. “How do we hook people who are more interested in watching ‘Love is Blind’ into a sports show?”

The baseball game will stream Wednesday at 5 p.m. Pacific time.

Times staff writer Stephen Battaglio contributed to this report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Why Netflix is turning Major League Baseball’s opening night into a big event

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