Mar 25, 2026; San Francisco, California, USA; New York Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge (99) holds onto his bat after fouling off a pitch against the San Francisco Giants in the third inning at Oracle Park. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images
Opening Day looked a little different than usual for MLB fans this year.
Wednesday night’s game between the New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants kicked off the 2026 regular season. It was also broadcast exclusively on Netflix, a first for the streaming giant, which has been increasing its footprint in the live sports world. The inaugural Netflix broadcast had its fair share of issues, which baseball fans were quick to complain about.
Netflix struck a deal with MLB over the winter, giving it exclusive rights to show Opening Day, the Home Run Derby, and “special event games,” including the Field of Dreams Game, scheduled for Aug. 13 when the Philadelphia Phillies take on the Minnesota Twins. The partnership will run for three seasons, with Netflix paying an estimated $50 million each season, according to reports from Front Office Sports and others.
Netflix offered the Opening Day game to its more than 300 million paying subscribers based around the world and provided commentary in five languages — English, Spanish, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, and Korean — for Wednesday night’s season opener. However, several aspects of the broadcast came up short, which left many fans disappointed after Opening Day.
To start, they completely missed the first-ever automated ball-strike (ABS) challenge in MLB history. This is a new system instituted by the league where each team gets two challenges per game, with only failed challenges counting against their total. The introduction of robotic rulings for the first time in MLB’s more than a century-long history is a milestone moment, but the first time we saw this new technology used in-game, Netflix missed it for a dugout interview.
Yankees shortstop José Caballero challenged umpire Bill Miller’s strike call in the fourth inning. The strike call was upheld, but fans watching on TV missed the interaction, and Netflix failed to show a replay of the pitch location, instead airing an interview between on-field reporter Lauren Shehadi and Giants manager Tony Vitello.
Netflix brought in several retired MLB All-Stars as analysts for this game, including Barry Bonds, C.C. Sabathia, Albert Pujols, and Anthony Rizzo, to complement their broadcast staff. They also brought on NFL QB Jameis Winston, comedian Bert Kreischer, and WWE stars Jey Uso and Jacob Fatu at different points. While there were insightful and funny moments, it sometimes felt as if the actual game was secondary to the Netflix production.
Several fans also appeared to be disappointed with Netflix’s scorebug, taking to social media to express their displeasure. While this may seem like an unimportant detail, scorebugs are often scrutinized whenever a new rights-holder broadcasts an event, and many sports fans
It wasn’t all bad. Some of the Netflix segments worked, including when Yankees shortstop Jazz Chisholm Jr. gave an entertaining mid-game interview in the bottom of the second inning, discussing the team’s hot start to the game and outlook on the year ahead.
At the end of the day, even the Yankees fans who were most upset about the broadcast couldn’t stay disappointed for long. The Yankees easily beat the Giants 7-0, relying on a stellar performance from Max Fried and a barrage of hits early on to start their season off on the right foot.
This was Netflix’s baseball debut, and some growing pains are to be expected. The early issues will surely be smoothed out for future games. The technology giant is locked in with a multi-year deal, and baseball fans can only hope that the quality of their broadcasts improves, especially when the technology giant has the exclusive rights to premiere contests like yesterday’s Opening Day.
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