The 2026 Major League Baseball season begins tonight at Oracle Park in San Francisco, with the New York Yankees visiting the Giants. First pitch is 8:05 p.m. Eastern. The broadcast belongs to Netflix, which paid $1.5 billion for a three-event MLB package and is treating Opening Night as the centerpiece of its live sports strategy. Pregame coverage begins at 7 p.m. [1]

As this paper previewed yesterday, the matchup pairs Max Fried, the Yankees' marquee offseason acquisition, against Logan Webb, San Francisco's homegrown ace. Both are pitchers who suppress hard contact and keep games tight. The aesthetic should suit a prime-time audience better than a slugfest, though Netflix's track record with live sports production — tested so far with NFL Christmas games and a boxing card — will face its most sustained examination over three hours of continuous play-by-play.

The rest of the league opens Thursday, March 26, and the final roster cuts completed today have produced one headline that matters for the season ahead: JJ Wetherholt, the seventh overall pick in the 2024 draft, has made the St. Louis Cardinals' Opening Day roster. The 23-year-old middle infielder out of West Virginia was the Cardinals' top prospect and will make his major-league debut Thursday against the Pirates. [2]

Wetherholt's inclusion is notable because the Cardinals are rebuilding, and promoting a prospect this talented on Opening Day signals that the front office believes he is ready to be the foundation rather than the lottery ticket. ESPN's Jeff Passan noted that Wetherholt was the rare spring training performer who left the coaching staff with no decision to make — he simply outplayed every alternative. [3]

The Netflix arrangement continues to divide baseball's audience. The deal is part of a broader three-year agreement that also includes the Home Run Derby and a Field of Dreams game between the Twins and Reds later this season. For subscribers, it is a convenience. For non-subscribers, it is a paywall on a civic ritual — Opening Day has been available on broadcast or basic cable for the entirety of living memory.

The tension is real but may be overstated. Netflix has 283 million subscribers worldwide. The platform's audience for its NFL Christmas games in December exceeded 26 million concurrent viewers. Baseball's challenge is not access; it is attention. MLB's average viewer age continues to climb, and the sport's relevance among younger demographics has declined for two decades. Netflix, whatever its production limitations, is where those younger viewers already live.

Thirty teams. One hundred sixty-two games. The season that begins tonight will not be decided by a streaming platform. But how many people watch it start may determine where baseball's money comes from for the next decade.

-- AMARA OKONKWO, Lagos