Netflix’s debut coverage of Major League Baseball’s Opening Night game drew the second-largest audience for a traditional Opening Day telecast since 2017, with nearly 3 million US viewers.
The 2026 regular-season opener between the New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants averaged 2.97 million viewers on Netflix, according to Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel measurement system.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Access deeper industry intelligence
Experience unmatched clarity with a single platform that combines unique data, AI, and human expertise.
Netflix fell short of the 3 million mark by 32,000 impressions. Still, the audience was the largest for an Opening Night game since the COVID-affected 2020 season—and the largest outside of that irregular year since Cubs-Cardinals opened the 2017 campaign in front of 3.62 million viewers. Yankees-Nationals averaged 4.01 million viewers for the COVID-delayed 2020 MLB opener, which was played in July.
With streaming attracting younger audiences, the game delivered MLB’s youngest Opening Day audience in a decade. Among those who streamed, 1.38 million viewers were adults aged 18–49, including 636,000 adults aged 18–34.
The game marked the start of a new three-year, three-event MLB rights deal for Netflix. In addition to Opening Night, Netflix will also carry the annual Home Run Derby and the 2026 return of the MLB at Field of Dreams game.
Under its strategy of airing a small number of special-event games each season, Netflix’s rights could eventually expand to include events such as “MLB at Rickwood Field” or “MLB Speedway.”
Netflix is reportedly paying $150 million for the three-year deal, which covers three marquee events annually and was acquired from the package ESPN opted out of early last year. Disney’s sports network chose to end its long-running MLB partnership at the end of the 2025 season after MLB declined ESPN’s request to reduce the annual rights fee.
Netflix’s sports strategy emphasizes high-impact, limited-run events rather than full-season weekly schedules. The MLB events join a broader push into live sports that already includes NFL Christmas Day games, WWE’s flagship program Raw, the 2026 World Baseball Classic, Formula 1’s Canadian Grand Prix in 2026, the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2027 and 2031, and high-profile boxing matches—largely focusing on “mega-events” featuring popular celebrities, legends, and top-tier contenders.
These live rights complement Netflix’s growing slate of sports docuseries, including Drive to Survive (Formula 1), Full Swing (golf), and Break Point (tennis).
