Netflix made its baseball broadcasting debut Wednesday (March 26), streaming the first game of the 2026 Major League Baseball season exclusively, and the results were a mixed bag of highlights and stumbles that left fans and critics talking.
The New York Yankees faced the San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park in San Francisco in the only game on MLB's schedule that day. As The Hollywood Reporter noted, the broadcast was a true Netflix exclusive — even the YES Network in New York was blacked out, meaning Yankees fans in the tristate area could only watch by logging into Netflix.
The pregame show drew attention for both its big-name guests and its heavy self-promotion. According to Awful Announcing, Netflix arrived at Oracle Park with 73 kayaks in McCovey Cove, a shirtless comedian, two WWE tag team champions, and all-time home run king Barry Bonds. Bonds was described as "a breath of fresh air," speaking candidly about his legacy and his relationship with teammates in a way that made for compelling television.
Host Elle Duncan, who left ESPN in December to join Netflix, drew widespread praise as the standout of the hour-long pregame show. She shared the set with Bonds, Albert Pujols, and Anthony Rizzo.
But the pregame wasn't all hits. Netflix used the hour before first pitch to promote several of its own titles, including Little Brother, Free Bert, Stranger Things, Thrash, Man on Fire, and Monday Night Raw. WWE's Jey Uso wasn't introduced to the Oracle Park crowd until 8:20 p.m. ET, a full 20 minutes after game coverage began, in a segment that left the baseball crowd confused and indifferent, according to the review. Comedian Bert Kreischer appeared three times during the broadcast, including a mid-game segment shot from a kayak in McCovey Cove while drinking a beer, in noticeably lower-quality footage than the rest of the telecast.
The game itself didn't start until 8:25 p.m. ET, 25 minutes late. Once play began, play-by-play man Matt Vasgersian drew strong marks, with Hunter Pence and CC Sabathia settling into the booth after a bumpy start in the early innings.
As reported by The Sporting News, Netflix's scorebug,the on-screen display showing the score, count, and batter information, became a flashpoint on social media. Fans criticized the tiny font used for the pitcher's name, batter's name, and pitch count, saying it required active effort to read during live at-bats. The visual concept, built around a near-three-dimensional basepath layout, was seen as aesthetically bold but functionally flawed.
The night's most-criticized moment came in the top of the fifth inning, when Netflix's broadcast cut to a routine dugout interview with Giants manager Tony Vitello, and, in doing so, missed the first Automatic Ball-Strike (ABS) challenge in Major League Baseball regular-season history. The historic moment happened off-screen and was barely acknowledged until after the fact. Social media erupted with criticism, and the incident was widely cited as the broadcast's most damaging failure.
"Really, really bad to miss the first ABS call of an MLB regular season game for an in-game interview with a manager," sports media journalist Sam Neumann wrote on social media. Reporter Grant Paulsen called it a "huge gaffe," writing, "First challenge in history and they didn't show the review on the board."
Netflix reportedly paid around $50 million for the rights to three baseball events this year, which also include the Home Run Derby and the annual Field of Dreams game. The streamer's next baseball broadcast will come later this summer.