Netflix's MLB debut was self-promotion with a side of baseball: Opinion
· Yahoo Sports
There have been times over the past three decades when Major League Baseball has come off perhaps a little too desperate.
Visit afsport.lat for more information.
Crises both self-inflicted (the canceling of the 1994 World Series) and external (Big Football consuming the attention economy, the collapse of linear television) can make the erstwhile national pastime scramble to claw back some of that cultural currency.
And it seemed like more of the same when MLB agreed to sell a pair of prime real estate properties – a standalone Opening Night game and the much-loved Home Run Derby – to Netflix. Hey, gotta meet the viewers where they are and besides, the $50 million annually for three years doesn’t hurt.
Yet when the time finally came for this standalone opener on a nascent sports broadcaster to get beamed to some 300 million global subscribers, it wasn’t the league that came off desperate to leverage the window.
It was Netflix.
You’d think a global brand whose name is synonymous with streaming like Coke and Xerox are for their products wouldn’t feel the need to force-feed the viewer with noxious, wall-to-wall promotions of their #content.
Silly us, failing to realize Netflix was actually bigger than the game.
From Daniel Dae Kim’s game intro (catch him in "Avatar: The Last Airbender") to pro wrestler John Cena’s strange assignment to explain the automatic ball-strike system (hey, be sure to watch "Little Brother," where he stars alongside Eric André, and Michelle Monaghan) to Bert Kreischer’s floating around in a kayak and his pregame screaming as on-field MC, the viewer was never allowed to breathe.
"Free Bert"? No, set us free.
By the time they found Yahya Abdul-Mateen II conveniently seated behind home plate (hey, "Man on Fire" drops April 26!), one thing was clear.
Fox Sports, known for its relentless promotion by placing "Party of Five" stars and Zooey Deschanel in the stands – or singing the national anthem – for World Series games, is off the hook.
The game itself? It was fine enough, though it couldn’t begin until WWE on Netflix superstar Jey Uso screamed “Play Ball!” in front of the sellout crowd.
Elle Duncan did well to direct traffic among the star-studded pregame panel of Barry Bonds, Anthony Rizzo and Albert Pujols, with Bonds in Candid Mode by explaining he was “probably the best teammate you’d ever have” and then regaling the booth with an anecdote that he hung up on George Steinbrenner.
The stream was clean. The Yankees mashed. Max Fried shoved. It’s tough to mess up baseball.
Which brings us to the ever-shifting power dynamics in media and entertainment. It’s almost like Netflix had to throw the kitchen sink at a captive audience surely filled with unique visitors. And the reminders of our ruthless media ecosystem were hard to ignore.
Heck, the game was played at a park named for Oracle, whose founder, Larry Ellison, and his son David, the CEO of Paramount Skydance, closed an $8 billion merger with Paramount, a deal that still needs approval.
Paramount’s power play will only further consolidate media in all forms, with the flailing CBS News, CNN, HBO, TikTok and many others under one roof. And Paramount emerged victorious because the favorite pulled out.
Netflix.
Shareholders hated the $83 billion transaction, its share price declining 30% after the deal was announced, only to rebound 14% upon news Netflix was pulling out.
It’s vicious out there in this atomized entertainment and media environment, perhaps one reason why Netflix aimed to hog every moment in the California sunshine. It colonized McCovey Cove with 73 canoes with the company logo, worked in a Stranger Things “activation” and segued yet another Kreischer encounter into a promo for “Thrash on Netflix.”
As self-aggrandizing as ESPN can often be, this was another level, as if the delivery mechanism for the entertainment was more important than the entertainment itself. Like going on and on about a beer mug or wine glass rather than the drink itself.
It was an odd kickoff to what was unofficially the beginning of MLB’s highly uncertain yet promising broadcast future. The league is essentially beta testing what works for its teams, broadcast partners and viewers, with the moment of truth coming in three years, when its entire inventory is up for bid.
Certainly, money will talk far more than broadcast quality. And while the baseball side of things had a couple mess-ups – such as missing the first ABS challenge during a dugout interview, and an incredibly softball interview with Commissioner Rob Manfred – it came off fine.
The same can’t necessarily be said for the parent club, whose next baseball foray comes with July 13’s Home Run Derby. Hard to imagine many would be pining for Chris Berman’s old “Back, back, back!” call on that one.
Then again, it might be more preferable than an endless network promo.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: MLB on Netflix review: Commercials dominate MLB Opening Day debut