TORONTO — The year is 2032. Late October. Your baseball watching mostly consists of social media highlights these days, but your friends texted you that tonight is Game 7 of the World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays. Stars sell sports and tonight is 38-year-old Shohei Ohtani, the six-time Most Valuable Player, against Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who just passed the 400 career home run mark this season.
“Game 7” remains the two best words in sports, so you tell your friends to swing by your crib before first pitch. Given the reach of the broadcaster, Game 7 of the 2032 World Series should have a big tune-in from around the globe. Your friends have arrived. Time to turn on Netflix. Or maybe it’s Amazon Prime Video, YouTube or Apple TV +.
“As a baseball person, I’m not ready to emotionally cross that bridge yet,” said Blue Jays announcer Dan Shulman, when told of this futuristic scenario of the World Series on a streaming platform. “I’m 58 years old and I would say I’m average in technology. Sometimes I can find stuff, sometimes I gotta call my son and say, how can I get the Maple Leafs game tonight and he tells me. There are a lot of people watching the World Series who are a little bit older than me who are not as comfortable with technology. But I totally get it. We’re on our way to being dinosaurs. I’m just not ready to go through that portal yet for the World Series.”
“It would be tragic, not right, incorrect,” said Dave Sims, the 72-year-old Yankees radio play-by-play broadcaster, when told of the same scenario. “I mean, I grew up
hearing the Gillette theme song and Mel Allen saying, ‘This is Mel Allen, and welcome to the World Series.’ If it’s still going to be one of the great pastimes in the country, you can’t hold a gun to someone’s head and make them pay. I hope it doesn’t happen. I mean, I can see it happening, but I hope not.”
This column is a thought experiment, but it’s a thought experiment that seems destined to happen.
Streaming reached a
historic milestone in May, as its share of total television usage outpaced the combined share of broadcast and cable for the first time, according to Nielsen. Then, in June, broadcast dipped below 20 percent of TV viewership for the first time — less than YouTube and Netflix’s combined viewership (see chart below). Just look among your own sports community. How many people do you know who pay for a streaming service to watch sports? Bet it’s a lot.
Once upon a time, the thought of a major sports championship airing on cable seemed preposterous. And yet:
- Last month, the Stanley Cup Final aired on TNT, a cable network.
- The college basketball men’s and women’s Final Fours have already done so.
- The college football title game does so annually.
- You probably did not imagine sports airing on Netflix five years ago. This year, Netflix will air NFL games on Christmas and wants to add more games in the future.
- Netflix also secured the exclusive broadcast rights in the United States for the 2027 and 2031 editions of the Women’s World Cup.
- Amazon Prime Video has its own Thursday night NFL package.
- ESPN+ and Peacock have exclusive NFL broadcasts.
- The NFL’s Week 1 schedule includes the Chiefs and Chargers streaming live on YouTube, a first for the league.
- Amazon Prime Video will also broadcast an NBA conference final in 2027.
So the World Series on streaming? The industry experts I spoke with think it’s inevitable.