Netflix's MLB debut included "make-good" ads from NFL shortfalls
The 2026 Major League Baseball season opened Wednesday on Netflix. (I didn't watch; I gave up on baseball after the Pirates lost the 1992 NLCS. ) The broadcast, as explained by John Ourand of Puck , had connective tissue to Netflix's most recent NFL foray.
As Ourand explains in his Varsity newsletter, several ads that appeared during the Yankees-Giants game from San Francisco were " make-goods " due to Netflix's failure to deliver numbers it had promised to advertisers for the Christmas doubleheader featuring Cowboys-Commanders and Lions-Vikings. The games generated 19. 9 million viewers for Cowboys-Commanders and 27.
5 million for Lions-Vikings; however, Netflix fell short of the guarantees for the 18-54 demographic — reportedly by 18 percent. And with Netflix not having any live sports from Christmas until exactly three months later, the "make-good" ads happened during the MLB game. Ourand reports that Netflix offered to place ads on other programming, but many of them preferred to have ads purchased for a live sporting event to be used for a live sporting event.
With Netflix, to date, having only a smattering of live sports, the next opportunity was the first game of the MLB season. For streamers like Netflix that will be cherry-picking big events and not buying full packages, it could become a common issue.