95.7 The Game’s Joe Shasky offered a blunt assessment of Netflix and its presentation of Major League Baseball Opening Night, criticizing the streamer’s approach while also urging fans to rethink their resistance to streaming.
Speaking on 95.7 The Game’s The Morning Roast, Shasky said Netflix missed an opportunity to establish credibility with core baseball audiences. Instead of leaning into the sport’s traditions with the Opening Night broadcast, he believes the platform tried too hard to entertain.
“If Netflix is going to go out on a limb and do sports, the last thing that they need to do to legitimize themselves to true sports fans is go all entertainment crazy,” Shasky said. “Amazon Prime when they first got in. What did they do? We’re gonna sign Al Michaels. That worked for sports fans.”
His comments reflect a broader concern that newer broadcast partners may prioritize spectacle over substance. While experimentation can help attract casual viewers, Shasky suggested that authenticity remains essential. Especially for a sport with deep historical roots.
That theme carried into his critique of the broadcast’s talent choices, using Prime Video as the example with Michaels. Shasky questioned why Jon Miller, a longtime voice of the San Francisco Giants and former national broadcaster with ESPN, was not included in the production.
“Why didn’t they bring in Jon Miller? He’s one of the most beloved kind of grandpa characters in baseball and really in sports,” said Shasky. “To be a master of the ceremony of the pregame festivities [on Netflix]. Is there anybody who’s a better talker in front of like podium, and can blend in the history of the game. He should have been at the beginning.”
The broadcast last night kicked off a media rights agreement that Netflix and MLB signed last year. That partnership brings Opening Night to the streaming platform with more than 90 million subscribers in the U.S. and Canada and over 300 million globally.
Because of the subscriber figures, Shasky took a firm stance against what he views as excessive backlash to streaming distribution. He argued that complaints about games moving away from traditional television to Netflix should no longer reflect reality.
“All of us sports fans, we got to stop complaining,” he said. “Who the hell doesn’t have Netflix? There are like 300 million subscribers on Netflix. My mother is almost 70 years old knows how to Netflix. My 89 year old grandfather has Netflix and knows how to operate it. We got to stop complaining.”
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