Baseball fans got their first taste of the game on Apple TV+ on Friday night, and the reviews were not good. Among the fans that were left unimpressed was Gregg Giannotti. On Monday morning, he joked that he didn’t even see the games and was still upset.
“Without even seeing it, it ruined my Friday night because all I was getting was texts about it,” Giannotti said.
The complaints encompassed both the look and the sound of the game on Apple TV+. Apple tried to do something very innovative with its presentation, incorporating elements iPhone and Mac users have come to know for a long time.
Giannotti said that maybe it points to Apple’s lack of faith in the game.
“What it kinda tells me though is this is what Apple TV thinks of baseball,” he said on WFAN’s Boomer & Gio. “They don’t think the game stands on its own. They were talking about a lot of things that have nothing to do with the game apparently. Just little stories and anecdotes and stuff like that. They’re putting people in there that don’t have any experience whatsoever, so they didn’t treat it like it was a big game Friday night situation at all.”
Boomer Esiason did watch the games. He told his partner that he thought the broadcast was “unlistenable.” Still, he took a glass-half-full approach to the product.
“Certain things get worse. The Booger-Mobile got worse,” Boomer said referencing Monday Night Football’s sideline cart piloted by Booger McFarland. “I don’t know if this can get any worse, but you know, if it can’t get any worse, hopefully, there will be room for improvement.”
Friday night will bring another Major League Baseball doubleheader to Apple TV+. The early game will feature the Rays in Chicago to take on the White Sox. The late game will see the LA Dodgers hosting the Cincinnati Reds.
The Angles Houston game was a little better than the Mets Nats game. They both sucked but at least the second game had a real reporter and a real analyst. I think it was horrible to put Katie Nolan on the game. The crew that was working the Mets Nats game was horrible to listen to. Also the little graphics in the corner that you can not see was distracting. Also they made little attempt to provide in game stats. The games suffered because Apple tried to make a woke product out of MLB a game full of fans that are 50+ and mostly white. If MLB is assisting on production they need to reign Apple in on this experiment.