Netflix drew the youngest MLB Opening Day audience since 2017
Netflix drew the youngest MLB Opening Day audience since 2017
The streamer says 3 million fans watched the game, despite the mixed reviews its production of the event drew.
The New York Yankees walloped the San Francisco Giants 7-0 on MLB’s Opening Night, but the true story of the evening was Netflix’s production of the game. Opening Night 2026 was Netflix’s first-ever live MLB game, and the streamer has now revealed ratings data to show how the evening went — at least from an audience measurement perspective.
Key Details:
- Big night: MLB’s 2026 Opening Night drew the biggest audience since 2020.
- Youth movement: The audience among adults 18-49 was the best for an MLB Opening Day since 2017.
- Get used to it: The strong numbers mean MLB and Netflix’s partnership could continue past 2028.
Netflix’s internal numbers for the MLB Opening Night game have now been compared to those of Big Data, and the result shows that the streamer drew 3 million fans for the game. That was the biggest MLB opener audience since the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
Removing that outlier year from the equation, Netflix’s MLB opener drew the youngest audience of any Opening Day game in nearly a decade. The audience pool aged 18 to 49 was the largest for MLB since 2017, which should make the league quite happy. MLB has spent the past half-decade or so trying to figure out the best way to court younger fans, including taking measures to shorten games.
Bringing younger fans to the game is key for MLB’s long-term survival, so the league has to be thrilled with its partnership with Netflix thus far. The streamer will carry other live MLB events this year, including the Field of Dreams game and the Home Run Derby during All-Star Week.
For Netflix, the ratings are a vindication of its methods. The Streamable’s own Matt Tamanini said in his review that, while Netflix has plenty to grow on, its first-ever MLB presentation was a success in many ways. Other analysts were less kind, saying that Netflix’s production of the game felt more like a long, sustained ad for its streaming library than a celebration of MLB. Many questioned how Netflix would apply its philosophy of turning sports into major viewing events to a sport in which every team plays more than 160 games per season.
For now, Netflix has answered that question. It’s possible that audiences only flocked to Netflix to enjoy the novelty of being able to stream an MLB game there, of course, and featuring teams like the Giants and Yankees, with large international fanbases, didn’t hurt.
Still, if Netflix is able to draw equivalently high numbers for its future MLB offerings, the streamer can position itself as a bigger MLB partner in the future, should it want to. MLB’s deal with Netflix runs through 2028, but if the streamer keeps ratings high until then, it’s in a good position to bid on additional game packages in the future. However, given the streamer’s live sports predilictions, it would seem far more likely that Netflix would look to add playoff series before a larger package of regular season games.
Netflix caught a lot of flak for its presentation of MLB Opening Night, and indeed, the streamer did stumble into some unforced errors. But if it can clean up some of those issues, it has proved it can deliver an audience for MLB games — crucially, a younger audience that MLB has been chasing for some time.
Netflix
Netflix is a leading subscription-based video streaming service that offers on-demand access to an extensive library of over 3,000 movies, 2,000+ TV shows, and a growing collection of acclaimed Netflix originals. Renowned for producing groundbreaking content, Netflix has become a cultural powerhouse with hit originals like “Stranger Things,” “Wednesday,” “Squid Game,” “The Crown,” “Tiger King,” “Bridgerton,” “The Witcher,” and “Black Mirror.”