Sean Pendergast and Seth Payne spent time during Payne and Pendergast on SportsRadio 610 in Houston talking about Netflix broadcasting the two Christmas Day games the NFL carved out for them. The Houston Texans will be one of the teams playing as they host the Baltimore Ravens. The first game of the day will feature the Chiefs at the Steelers.
“I’m very anxious to see how Netflix executes on this Christmas Day game with the Texans,” Pendergast said. “Netflix has never done a live football game before. They’ve started to get into more live events…they’re doing the Tyson-Jake Paul fight in July, that’ll be interesting.”
Pendergast referenced an article written by The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch which discussed not only who might announce the game but also who will produce it as Netflix is not set up for a live NFL broadcast from a production standpoint. Deitsch quotes NFL vice president of broadcast planning Mike North, who was a guest of Sports Illustrated’s Jimmy Traina on his podcast.
“…They’re probably going to end up working with existing NFL crews, existing NFL talent, similar to the way Amazon (did) when they picked up the NFL rights a few years ago. They didn’t have a remote production house. They didn’t have people on staff. So, they went and hired NBC.
North said he would guess CBS and Fox production folks would be who they would go with. As far as talent, North said, “I’m sure you’re going to have some regular names that, you know, we’re used to seeing, whether it’s NFL Network talent or former players. Maybe there’s some guys coming out of retirement, coming out of other network broadcast booths. Maybe it’s guys we haven’t heard of. I’m sure there’s time to figure that out, but I would feel pretty confident as we sit here today that it’s going to look and sound like an NFL game by the time we get there.”
Pendergast asked Payne, “Do you have a preference, like if you could pick any announce team to do this Ravens-Texans game?”
“I like Kevin Harlan for everything,” Payne replied. “I want my all-time play-by-play to be Kevin Harlan. I want him to do every game that I care about.”
Pendergast didn’t pick a broadcast team, he just opined on who he does not want. “I just don’t want Tony Romo anywhere near that game, that’s all,” he said. “Just keep Tony Romo away. I don’t want Tony Romo on Christmas. Keep him away from my Ravens and Texans.”
