Netflix and Major League Baseball have inked their first formal partnership.
The streaming giant and MLB have reportedly agreed to terms that will see Netflix broadcast the 2026 World Baseball Classic to a Japanese audience. The deal comes amid multiple reports suggesting that Netflix will also obtain rights to the Home Run Derby once MLB formalizes its new set of interim media rights agreements designed to take the league through 2028.
Next year’s WBC is set to take place in multiple cities around the world, including a pool-play round in Tokyo. The knockout stages will all be played stateside, with Houston and Miami being the two host cities.
Japan has proven itself to be a baseball-crazed audience. Earlier this year, MLB’s Tokyo Series, which featured Japan’s own Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers, drew 25 million viewers in the country, an audience larger than any American television audience baseball has seen since Game 7 of the 2017 World Series.
The deal shows Netflix continues to be intentional about obtaining live sports rights. The streamer has focused in on properties it can “eventize,” and the World Baseball Classic surely falls into that category. Per Sports Business Journal, six of Japan’s seven games in the 2023 WBC averaged over 30 million viewers in the country.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.