Major League Baseball

2004 and 2024 Red Sox to be focus of Netflix documentaries

Published Feb. 7, 2024 2:46 p.m. ET

The Boston Red Sox will be the focus of a pair of new Netflix shows.

The streaming service will follow the team through the 2024 season and present a "Hard Knocks" style documentary series in 2025. Netflix will have "unprecedented access to players, coaches and executives throughout the 2024 season." The documentary has been in the planning stages for the past three years, with filming for the upcoming season beginning in spring training.

"A lot of people, even in the athlete community, don’t fully understand what it’s like to play 162 games," Red Sox chief marketing officer Adam Grossman told The Athletic on Wednesday. "It’s unlike anything in professional sports.

"That’s one piece, and then the other piece is that there are people behind these uniforms. They’ve got interests and thoughts. There’s an endurance test that they go through [in season], and there’s a whole world out there that may not be on display in the same way they think that it should."

This year, Netflix intends to air a documentary focused on the 2004 Red Sox, the team that broke the so-called "Curse of the Bambino" and won the franchise's first World Series title since 1918. It will be directed by Colin Barnicle, the son of former Boston Globe and Herald columnist Mike Barnicle.

The documentary on the 2004 season will center on Boston's comeback from down 3-0 to the New York Yankees in the AL Championship Series.

"What we are seeing across sports is there are more people out there that may be interested in sports and players, even if they didn’t grow up with the game," Grossman said. "Part of that is the platform and the tools that are now at their disposal to bring people into a tent."

As for the present, the Red Sox are coming off a 78-84 season in which they finished last in the AL East. It was their second consecutive season without a playoff appearance.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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