Check Out the Premiere of the SI TV Original Documentary ‘Ohtani: Made in Iwate’

How to watch Shohei Ohtani’s origin story on SI TV.

SI TV

After years of chronicling Shohei Ohtani’s two-way brilliance on the baseball diamond across the print and digital pages of Sports Illustrated, the global star’s exploits hit SI’s streaming platform with the SI TV release of Ohtani: Made in Iwate, an original documentary detailing the Japanese star’s journey from his hometown to MLB.

The documentary makes its world premiere Thursday, Oct. 1 at 7 p.m. ET on SI TV, Sports Illustrated’s free ad-supported streaming service available on many of your favorite streamers and devices. It will then re-air the same night at 9 p.m. ET.

How can I watch SI TV?

SI TV is free to stream and available to watch on a number of FAST (free ad-supported TV) services including The Roku Channel, Amazon Prime Video, DIRECTV, Amazon Fire TV, Sling Freestream, Plex and LocalNow. SI TV can be found in the sports tier of several streamers.

SI TV

Shohei Ohtani’s path to stardom

Ohtani signs with Angels

Friday, Dec. 8, 2017 marks the day a then-23-year-old Ohtani announced his decision to sign with the Angels after a bevy of MLB suitors tried to lure him stateside. The Japanese Babe Ruth teamed up with Mike Trout—arguably the best player in the game at the time—to create what looked like the most formidable duo in baseball.

By the time training camps opened the following spring, Ohtani mania had swept the entire sport. Could the two-way wunderkind adapt to his new surroundings fast enough to make the Angels contenders right away? Would he live up to the hype? And would Ohtani’s at-the-plate and on-the-rubber exploits be equally valuable to keep his new club from turning him into a traditional hitter-only or pitcher-only member of the roster?

The overall feeling at Angels camp before the 2018 season was captured in SI’s MLB preview cover story: “In just one winter, Los Angeles refashioned itself as the most interesting team in baseball.”

Robert Beck/Sports Illustrated

Ohtani’s U.S. growing pains

Although Ohtani showed plenty of flashes of brilliance in his first two seasons in the bigs, including an AL rookie of the year award in 2018, injuries cost him significant playing time. He required Tommy John surgery for a blown right elbow in ’18 that cost him time on the mound, and Ohtani’s ’19 season was cut short due to season-ending knee surgery in September. (This is all after having surgery on his right ankle in ’17 when he was still in Japan. )

That did not, however, slow down the sense of hope and hoopla around the Angels as the 2020 season was set to open. (One that would, of course, be delayed and truncated by a global pandemic.)

Tom Verducci’s SI cover story that March, “Shohei Ohtani, Mended but Undaunted, Is Ready to Amaze Baseball Once Again,” captured the stakes and expectations:

Therein lies the magic and the preciousness of Ohtani. Here he sits with a rebuilt elbow, a mended knee and a repaired right ankle: three operations in 24 months. Yet he persists in doing what no major leaguer has done for a hundred years—not because it’s a stunt but because he must.

“Of course, I like doing both,” he says. “That’s one of the biggest reasons I want to keep doing it: I have the capabilities to do it. When I’m actually out there hitting every day and pitching and running around, that’s when I feel the most satisfaction in baseball.”

Sports Illustrated/Getty Images

The COVID-19-shortened 2020 season would prove to be another injury-plagued disappointment for Ohtani.

Ohtani becomes the modern Babe Ruth

The revelation would come in 2021, as a fully healthy Ohtani put all the pieces together for a season unlike any other.

At the plate, Ohtani blasted 46 home runs and slugged .592 to take home AL MVP honors. On the mound, “Shotime” went 9–2 with a 3.18 ERA, striking out 156 batters in 130 ⅓ innings. Ohtani’s combined bWAR of 9.0 was only a preview of what was to come in the years that followed.

Verducci’s fall cover story that year, “The Ohtani Rules,” explained the phenomenon that was fast becoming the face of the game:

If you had only nine minutes, five seconds to understand why Ohtani, 27, has pulled off the most amazing season in baseball history, this was your window. Eight innings deep into a mid-August night, Ohtani hit one pitch 430 feet with his last swing and threw another 98.1 mph with his last fastball. Cliffs Notes to an epic.

Brad Mangin/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images

His 2022 and ’23 follow-ups would not disappoint: two more All-Star selections, another AL MVP award, leading the league in homers, OBP and slugging in ’23 and posting an ERA under 3.00 over 51 starts.

This was all building toward a move to an even bigger stage the following season.

Ohtani heads to the Dodgers

The biggest news of the 2023–24 MLB offseason came roughly six years to the day of Ohtani’s decision to join the Angels, when the Dodgers won his free-agent sweepstakes with an Earth-shattering, 10-year, $700 million deal.

After years of swimming in baseball mediocrity with the Angels, Ohtani was joining baseball’s perennial contenders in pursuit of World Series titles. Los Angeles handed Ohtani that megadeal despite there being serious doubts about his ever returning to the mound following a second Tommy John surgery that had ruled out his ability to pitch in 2024. But as a couple Dodgers executives explained to Verducci, the move was a no-brainer:

“There is only one player in a lifetime like this,” says one Dodger executive. “So when you have the one chance to sign Shohei Ohtani you do what you can.”

Says another Dodger executive, “There are very few true global superstars in the world of sports. There is only one when it comes to baseball.”

Ohtani reaches previously unimaginable heights

The payoff for L.A. was immediate. Ohtani’s first season with the Dodgers in 2024 was legendary, leading the league in plate appearances, runs, home runs, RBIs, OBP, slugging, OPS and total bases en route to running away with unanimous MVP honors and securing the first 50–50 season in the sport's history with a combination of 54 dingers and 59 stolen bases.

This all led many to wonder what more Ohtani could accomplish:

What if this colossal wonder Shohei Ohtani has put before us is only the appetizer? What if this is only the first line of Book 1 of a baseball epic?

Despite Ohtani’s postseason debut struggles, the Dodgers would go on to win the 2024 World Series over the Yankees in five games and then repeat as champions in ’25 in seven games against the Blue Jays—another MVP season for Ohtani, this one including a successful return to pitching.

Al Bello/Getty Images

Watch Ohtani: Made in Iwate on Thursday, Oct. 1 at 7 p.m. ET on SI TV.