ESPN broadcast the Home Run Derby for more than 30 years, from 1994 through last season, but after MLB and ESPN agreed to opt out of their deal this offseason, Netflix jumped in to take the rights to the Home Run Derby.
Netflix has, in recent years, gotten into live sports broadcasting by focusing on premier events rather than any sort of full-season coverage.
“The volume play is not really our strategy,” Netflix vice president of sports Gabe Spitzer told The Athletic last week. “Across sports, how can we show up at meaningful points across the season?”
This season, Netflix broadcast MLB’s standalone season opener in San Francisco, and in August it will carry the Field of Dreams game in Iowa, but the Home Run Derby is one of a kind.
“Opening Night was a huge one,” Spitzer said. “(So was) Field of Dreams, obviously, coming back this year after being off for a number of years. But then, really, the premium one was Home Run Derby. We know what it means, not just in the U.S. but around the world because we’re going to be in so many different countries.”
Most of the broadcast should look relatively familiar, but Netflix is going to broadcast in different languages around the world, well-equipped to tap into the global audience of Venezuelan slugger Willson Contreras and Japanese slugger Munetaka Murakami.
