MLB Opening Night: Grading Netflix's debut into broadcasting baseball

The 2026 MLB season is officially underway, and Netflix has joined the family of MLB broadcasters. 

The platform paid for the rights to broadcast the season opener and marketed it as a big deal. Netflix has broadcast sports before, and viewers are used to it cross-marketing its other projects often. Whether it was the speed of the game or just trying to do too much, the whole production ended up feeling disjointed. 

Netflix's score bug went viral on social media, despite how bad it was. The broadcast completely missed the first-ever ABS challenge in MLB regular-season history, and the ads for Netflix's projects were shown almost as much as the game itself. It was a rough debut for the platform that will broadcast the 2026 Home Run Derby and the Field of Dreams game. 

Let's recap Netflix's first baseball broadcast and grade the production. 

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Grading Netflix's MLB debut

The best way to grade the broadcast is to break it down into the pre-game show and the actual broadcast.

Pre-Game

The pre-game show consisted of Elle Duncan hosting a panel of Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols and Anthony Rizzo. Some of the pregame show was good, as viewers got insight from two of the best hitters in baseball history and Rizzo, who was a very talented left-handed hitter, but would go viral for the moments he kept the game light. 

The pre-game festivities were a reminder that Netflix does way too much whenever they do these broadcasts. Keeping the pre-game show about Bonds, Pujols and Rizzo would have been fine. It was before the first game of the year, and there was plenty to talk about, with Bonds' history with San Francisco and the upcoming season.

Instead, it turned largely into an infomercial for Netflix. The company cross-markets its programming whenever it gets the chance, and it was known when the special guests were announced. Comedian Bert Kreischer was shown multiple times, both pre-game and during the broadcast, in a kayak in McCovey Cove. 

NFL quarterback Jameis Winston was involved for some reason. Winston played college baseball at Florida State, but the only other connection is that Netflix now shows NFL games on Christmas. He was funny, but they had him doing comedic jokes. Winston was briefly shown later in a clip as part of the field crew, but that is the kind of stuff people want to see from Winston in these spots. 

The first pitch was supposed to be thrown out by Thing from "Wednesday." The fact that the character is just a sentient hand running around made it fair to wonder how the broadcast would pull it off. Well, Thing never threw out a first pitch, CGI or otherwise. Instead, it was former managers Bruce Bochy and Dusty Baker who had the honors, and it wasn't actually shown.

Bruce Bochy and Dusty Baker throw out the ceremonial first pitch. pic.twitter.com/Ad1cImr29b

It is also semantics, but WWE tag team "the Usos" were announced to be special guests. Jey Uso, one-half of the tag team, was there and basically just said, "play ball." Later, he was shown with his cousin Jacob instead of his twin brother Jimmy, who is the other half of his tag team. 

Grade: C-

It was fine, but it could have been done better. There were too many eye rolls and non-baseball chatter ahead of the first game of the season. 

MORE: Why Netflix took over McCovey Cove ahead of Yankees-Giants

Game Broadcast

The broadcast was rough. It was Netflix's first time broadcasting baseball, and they likely will take notes and adjust for next time. The biggest complaint around social media from the broadcast was about the score bug. Every broadcast has to determine how it wants to relay the score and relevant information on the screen. The score bug that Netflix went with was overly complicated, and also forced the batter's name, pitcher's name, and pitch count to be displayed in minuscule font. 

The 2026 season also marked the first time MLB would use a pitch challenge system. ABS has been tested in the minors and spring training and is finally being used in the big leagues. We got our first challenge in the game. The Netflix broadcast was showing an interview with Giants head coach Tony Vitello, and cut back to the umpire when they realized what was happening. The broadcast never looked at the Jumbotron for the review of the pitch, and Netflix missed the first-ever official ABS challenge on its broadcast. 

Sports broadcasts have adapted to try to figure out the best way to run advertisements during games. Some hockey broadcasts have started using holographic ads along the boards. This technique made its way to MLB, and fans have seen ads on the back of the mound before. Typically they stick behind home plate, which was the case Wednesday night. Unfortunately for the Netflix broadcast, the holographic ad mixed with firework smoke made for a bad visual in the early part of the game. 

cannot express how much i truly despise the holographic ads behind homeplate pic.twitter.com/4anIb2OSIj

Baseball teams play 162 games a season. That means that announcers have to give 162 broadcasts throughout the regular season. To break it up, they will often mic up a player or a coach and interview them through an inning or two, or even have someone join them in the booth. With Netflix staying consistent with doing too much, the broadcast did entirely too many interviews and didn't know how to handle quick innings.

For example, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred joined the broadcast. Matt Vasgergian said that the announcers were excited to ask him questions. With how fast the inning went, Manfred answered just four questions. Just from the state of baseball with a likely lockout looming next season, the abrupt interview left a lot to be desired. 

The interview Matt Vasgersian, CC Sabathia and Hunter Pence did with Rob Manfred was one of the most embarrassing things I’ve ever seen on sports television.

Another semantic issue was just the choices the broadcast made. As an example, Jazz Chisholm is a big anime fan, particularly of the show "One Piece." It is an anime with over 1,100 episodes that has been adapted for a live-action Netflix series. One season is out, and another is releasing soon.  Chisholm was wearing a One Piece necklace and One Piece cleats. He was mic'd up during the game and wasn't asked a single question about the show. To make it worse, after the next commercial break, the broadcast did a whole intro promoting the upcoming season. It just felt disjointed.

To not be completely negative,  Vasgergian, CC Sabathia, and Hunter Pence (outside of the Manfred interview) did do a good job as a three-man booth. 

Grade: D

Overall Grade: D+

Netflix is a business. We are used to networks that broadcast sporting events to market their shoes, but Netflix always does it to an extreme, making it annoying and a distraction. The platform wasn't prepared for how fast innings could go and had to scramble to make up the advertising time to ensure all shows and projects were highlighted. There were times when they would be showing an interview, and an entire at-bat would happen. Fans on social media began commenting that it would be nice to actually see the game, and even though this was Netflix's first baseball broadcast, that shouldn't happen on opening night. 

Many MLB fans already weren't excited about the fact that the first game of the year was on Netflix, and the platform did not do enough to accentuate the game. It didn't feel like you watched a baseball game on Netflix. It felt like you watched Netflix, and there was just some baseball happening.