{"id":534009,"date":"2026-03-13T16:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T16:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/534009\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T16:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T16:12:10","slug":"netflixs-wbc-exclusivity-in-japan-raises-concern-for-dip-in-viewership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/534009\/","title":{"rendered":"Netflix’s WBC exclusivity in Japan raises concern for dip in viewership"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is \u201cconcern\u201d in Japan that MLB\u2019s partnership with Netflix to exclusively air World Baseball Classic games there<\/a> will \u201cultimately lead to a major dip in how many people watch the tournament<\/a>,\u201d according to Sam Blum of THE ATHLETIC. Reports stated that nearly 100 of the 125 million people in the country \u201cwatched at least some of the WBC\u201d in 2023. But MLB \u201cmade the choice to partner with Netflix\u201d in a country where \u201csubscriber services are unusual for sports.\u201d Nippon Professional Baseball Commissioner Exec Advisor Nobby Ito said, \u201cWithout terrestrial coverage, the overall national excitement around the WBC may become more limited, which may reduce the tournament\u2019s mass appeal.\u201d Blum noted Netflix\u2019s policies could \u201climit viewership in public settings, such as bars and restaurants,\u201d though the streamer is \u201cassisting in broadcasting the games in numerous public locations throughout the country, providing more widespread access to the games.\u201d Netflix initially said that it \u201cdiscouraged commercial use, which is against its terms of service.\u201d But in a subsequent statement, Netflix said that it is \u201cnot planning to act against businesses that do air the games.\u201d An MLB source said that the league \u201cviews its partnership with Netflix as \u2018a vehicle to help grow the game and reach a larger audience through a streaming service platform that is widely available.\u2019\u201d Samurai Japan manager Hirokazu Ibata \u201cpraised Netflix\u2019s coverage of the tournament\u201d and said that he has been \u201cregularly watching on the platform\u201d (THE ATHLETIC, 3\/12<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is \u201cconcern\u201d in Japan that MLB\u2019s partnership with Netflix to exclusively air World Baseball Classic games there…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[3307,49,48,75,462,82],"class_list":["post-534009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-baseball","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}