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

MLB Opening Night: Grading Netflix's debut into broadcasting baseball originally appeared on The Sporting News . Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here . 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. SN's MLB HQ: Live MLB scores | Updated MLB standings | Full MLB schedule 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.