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Yesterday — 16 July 2026Channel-Sport

Dan Patrick says Netflix tried too hard with the Home Run Derby broadcast: ‘I didn’t need Will Ferrell’

Dan Patrick, Will Ferrell
Credit: The Dan Patrick Show / Eric Hartline-Imagn Images

Dan Patrick isn’t fully on board with the swings Netflix took to dress up Monday’s Home Run Derby.

Discussing the broadcast on Tuesday’s episode of his eponymous show, Patrick said Netflix could stand to do a better job getting the word out about the star power it brought to the event, noting he had no idea names like Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols were involved until the broadcast was already underway.

“I’d like to think I’m at least socially aware of sporting events, but I had no idea,” Patrick said. “And then all of a sudden, it’s like Netflix, and then you had Will Ferrell show up, you had Bonds and Pujols, and I’m like, OK. They’re trying. Netflix is trying, trying different things. Now, sometimes you can try too hard. Sometimes you can try to dress something up, and you really don’t need to.”

DP recaps the Home Run Derby pic.twitter.com/W7uPETa8HP

— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) July 14, 2026

That tracks with the broader reaction to Monday’s broadcast, which got the Derby’s new swing-based format right while stumbling on execution elsewhere, including a Will Ferrell-led intro segment that landed with viewers about as well as it did with Patrick.

“I didn’t need Will Ferrell on the broadcast. I think they tried too hard in what they were trying to do there,” he said. “But, still, you’re trying to do new things. Sometimes, it’s just good the way it is.”

Patrick has been down this road with Netflix before. Back in March, he tore into the streamer’s Opening Night broadcast, an hour-long pregame slog padded with celebrity cameos that pushed first pitch to 8:25 p.m. and left him feeling like he’d “tuned into a PowerPoint on Netflix” with a baseball game buried somewhere inside it.

He wasn’t uniformly critical of Monday’s broadcast, though. Patrick praised Bonds’ ability to pick out small, specific details in hitters’ swings, after previously knocking him for spending too much time rambling about his own playing days a few months prior.

Netflix gets another shot Aug. 13, when the Phillies and Twins play at the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa. Two broadcasts into the deal, Patrick has made a habit of grading its work. There’s little reason to think he sits this one out.

The post Dan Patrick says Netflix tried too hard with the Home Run Derby broadcast: ‘I didn’t need Will Ferrell’ appeared first on Awful Announcing.

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