Netflix To Produce Docu On MLB Red Sox Season

The Boston Red Sox are allowing streaming leader Netflix full access during the upcoming MLB season.

From next week at spring training in Fort Myers, Fla., through the end of the 2024 season, Netflix film crews will be embedded with the Red Sox for an unprecedented glimpse into what goes into MLB players’ grind of six weeks of spring training and a 162-game regular season.

Netflix, which also is producing a documentary on the 2004 Red Sox to be aired later this year, will focus on a ball club facing intense scrutiny from its fan base over three last-place AL East finishes the last four years..

The players have signed off on it, as have manager Alex Cora and chief baseball officer Craig Breslow.

Adam Grossman, the Red Sox executive vice president/chief marketing officer, said Breslow offered his experience as a player as one reason the Netflix project will not get in the way.

“He said, ‘Strong teams with strong cultures won’t allow this to be a distraction, just like they wouldn’t allow other distractions to be distractions,’ ” said Grossman. “The most important thing to pull this off is trust between the director and the players and leadership. And if that’s there, then we’ll be able to do this.”

The idea was spawned three years ago, Grossman said, in a conversation among Red Sox principal owner John Henry, chairman Tom Werner, and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred.

The team first broached it to the players last April, when a group of 10 players listened to Netflix executives lay out the vision at Fenway Park.

After considerable dialogue between the team and the players, as well as communication with the Commissioner’s Office and the MLB Players Association, a meeting last September helped move the project further along to being green-lit.

The format will feature direct interviews with players, filming interactions with teammates, and, if they agree, away from the ballpark. Players who don’t want to participate in one-on-ones do not have to.