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.”
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.
In a move rarely seen in the middle of a season, the Texas Rangers are changing streaming partners effective immediately.
According to a report by Dallas Morning News reporter Evan Grant, the Rangers will be dropping their streaming partnership with Victory+, which has offered a full-season streaming subscription for in-market Rangers fans since last season for a price of $100, and will switch to a startup platform called BZZR beginning with this Friday’s game against the Atlanta Braves. The move was reportedly made out of concern for Victory+’s ability to fulfill its financial obligations to the team.
Per Grant, all subscribers that had bought packages on Victory+ will have their accounts transferred over to BZZR. The move will not impact the linear distribution of Rangers Sports Network on cable and satellite services like DirecTV.
“It is unfortunate that this switch in direct-to-consumer distributors was necessary, but the decision was made in the best interest of both the Rangers and our fans,” Rangers Sports Media and Entertainment Company chairman Neil Leibman said in a statement.
The Rangers’ decision paints a grim picture for Victory+, a nascent streaming service that has staked its claim in an all-out effort to court MLB, NBA, and NHL teams to place local broadcasts on the platform. In most markets, Victory+ has introduced a free streaming model in which games are broadcast in front of a paywall and revenue is generated through advertising. The Rangers, with their $100 per season subscription, were an exception. The Dallas Stars, however, chose the free model. Per Grant, no changes have been made regarding the Stars’ local broadcast plans for next season.
Victory+ has reportedly been in the mix to secure local broadcast rights to some of the 13 NBA teams that were previously under contract with Main Street Sports Group, owner of the now-defunct FanDuel Sports Networks. So far, the streamer has not struck deals with any of those teams. Per Sports Business Journal, potential deals with the Orlando Magic, Charlotte Hornets, and Minnesota Timberwolves all fell through after Victory+ failed to secure new financing. The three former Main Street clubs that have already announced local broadcast arrangements for next season have all chosen to partner with over-the-air broadcast networks.
If Victory+’s finances are as dire as the Rangers seem to believe, it’s difficult to envision any of the 10 remaining NBA teams looking for local broadcast solutions to choose to partner with the platform.
After a dominant run through the 2026 FIFA World Cup, defending champion France was denied a third consecutive trip to the final with a 2-0 loss to Spain in Tuesday’s semifinal match. It was a rather stunning end to the team’s run given the way it played throughout the tournament, but none of the players were particularly interested in talking about it.
France entered the 2026 FIFA World Cup as the betting favorite to lift the trophy, and it certainly looked the part through the group stage and the first three matches of the knockout round, winning every match it played by more than two goals per match on average.
The team was a perfect 6-0 in the tournament entering Tuesday’s match and had not so much as surrendered a goal through the first three matches of the knockout round, all while its high-powered offense, led by the tournament’s leading scorer Kylian Mbappé, made scoring feel inevitable.
But all that changed in Tuesday’s match. Not only did France surrender its first two goals of the knockout round, but Mbappé and company had no answers on the offensive side as they were held scoreless for the first time all tournament.
Needless to say, it was a surprising result, but France did not seem all that willing to answer for it after the match.
According to Michael J. Duarte of The California Post, no French player went through the media mix zone after the match. While not every player is required to speak to the media after matches, teams are required to designate some players to speak in the media mix zone. According to Duarte, that didn’t happen.
All of the French players refused to come through the media mix zone after the match.
FIFA will hopefully fine them.
None of the French players wanted to talk about the loss to Spain that ended their World Cup.
“All of the French players refused to come through the media mix zone after the match. FIFA will hopefully fine them. None of the French players wanted to talk about the loss to Spain that ended their World Cup,” he wrote in a post on X.
It is worth noting that Mbappé appears to have spoken to at least some members of the media in some capacity, as he is quoted in a Reuters article where he called the team’s performance “sloppy.” He also interviewed with Fox Sports reporter Jenny Taft following the match. So it’s probably not fair to say that all of the French players were entirely unwilling to speak on the loss. Whether Duarte and others got the chance to talk to French players, however, is obviously a different story. But based on FIFA’s rules, players are supposed to be made available in the mixed zone, and teams can be fined if that doesn’t happen.
After the loss, France will now take on the loser of Wednesday’s match between England and Argentina in the third-place match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup on Saturday afternoon.
“Still to this day, he swears it just got away from him,” Duncan said after Bonds reflected on the incident, which was the only time he charged the mound in his MLB career.
“No it didn’t, it did not get away,” Bonds insisted. “He’s a good pitcher and he’s a good man. In that situation, it was part of the game of baseball during that time, and I accepted it.”
There was maybe one day where Bottalico swore it got away from him. But in just about every other day since, Bottalico has been open about the fact that he plunked Bonds on purpose.
“Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong,” Bottalico responded to Elle Duncan and Netflix during his Tuesday afternoon show with co-host Bill Colarulo on 97.5 The Fanatic. “That is a bald-faced lie.
“I’ve told the story on this show, I’ve told the story on NBC Sports Philadelphia, I have told the story. I was told to go in and hit Barry Bonds. It’s that simple. When it happens, in the newspapers in the next day and all that back then, I had to say I didn’t do it on purpose or else I’m suspended for a month. It’s that simple. Yes, we had to lie back then!”
Bottalico explained that Bonds attempted to steal a base while the San Francisco Giants were already up by around seven runs on the Phillies. Shortly after that happened, manager Terry Francona phoned the bullpen and summoned an unnamed reliever to throw a pitch at Bonds. When that reliever allegedly declined, Bottalico was next man up, and he obliged with one pitch that garnered the only mound charge of Bonds’ career. Nearly three decades later, the story appeared to be news to Netflix.
In the first big soccer broadcasting move coming off the North American World Cup, Versant has reportedly acquired rights to air Bundesliga games in the U.S.
The top German soccer league, home to European powers Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund and several USMNT stars, will receive $100 million across five years on the new deal, according to The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand. Games will be split between USA Network and Fandango, the online platform most known for publishing movie information and selling movie theater tickets.
For the past six years, Bundesliga matches have aired primarily on ESPN+ in the U.S., with a limited number set aside for ESPN linear networks. That deal earned the German league $30 million per year, according to reports from when the deal was signed.
Despite the slight downtick in revenue in moving from ESPN platforms to Versant’s, Bundesliga figures to reach a greater audience with Versant, with USA Network airing at least 30 matches and the rest airing free on Fandango, according to The Athletic and Sports Business Journal.
“The key headline for us is that we are expanding our accessibility in the U.S. while simultaneously delivering strong financial results,” Robin Austermann, an executive at Bundesliga Americas, told SBJ.
For Versant, the deal expands USA Network’s growing live sports portfolio, which includes the WNBA, college sports, and golf, in addition to international soccer with the English Premier League.
The most fascinating element of the partnership, though, is the introduction of Fandango’s advertising-based video on-demand service as a player in live sports programming. The 250-plus Bundesliga matches that USA Network does not air will go to Fandango, moving out from behind the ESPN+ paywall. Media companies and sports leagues are increasingly looking to digital platforms like Fandango as potential live sports broadcasters. Versant told SBJ it has aimed to put live sports onto Fandango since Comcast spun off Versant earlier this year. Comcast originally purchased Fandango in 2007 for $200 million, with plans to turn it into an on-demand video service.
Still, Bundesliga ultimately took about a 33 percent hit on this deal, signaling a challenging market for overseas soccer leagues even amid a record summer for World Cup viewership.
Soon, Premier League rights will hit the market, as NBC Universal’s $450 million-per-year contract for the popular English league expires after the 2027-28 season.
FS1 has seen one of its most successful months in recent memory on the back of World Cup viewership. The week of June 15 was the cable network’s most-watched in its history by total-day audience, averaging 885,000 viewers across its dayparts. But it appears as if that success did not rub off on the network’s new morning show, Wake Up Barstool.
According to a report by Austin Karp in Sports Business Journal, Wake Up Barstool averaged just 19,000 viewers on FS1 in the month of June, keeping in line with the show’s soft television ratings that began last September when it debuted. Get Up, the show that airs in the same hours on ESPN, averaged 426,000 viewers, a staggering 2,142% better than Wake Up Barstool, per SBJ.
The underwhelming viewership is particularly notable given FS1’s success throughout the rest of the month. Historically, major live sporting events, like World Cup matches, can have a halo effect on a network’s other programming, even lasting through the overnight hours and into the next day. No such momentum appeared to hold for the 8 a.m. ET episodes of Wake Up Barstool.
The show has failed to capture any sort of loyal audience on linear television since its debut at the beginning of last football season. In its first week on the air, Wake Up Barstoolaveraged 16,500 viewers on FS1. Of course, Wake Up Barstool is unique in the sense that it is also available in full on YouTube, where episodes generally earn between 5,000 and 20,000 additional views.
To be abundantly fair to the show, it did technically earn 2,500 more viewers on average in the month of June than it did in its inaugural week last September. But it’d be quite the stretch to call that improvement a success, especially considering the potential viewership windfall live World Cup matches could’ve provided.
FS1 earned a rare month-long victory over ESPN in primetime viewership during the month of June thanks to the strength of this year’s World Cup audience.
Fox Sports 1 averaged 1.31 million viewers in primetime throughout the month of June, good for the second most-watched cable network of the month behind only sister channel Fox News which averaged 2.26 million viewers in primetime. ESPN finished in third place, averaging 1.08 million viewers for the month in primetime.
Top Cable Channels for the month of June. Live+SD, Primetime. Viewers P2+.
1. FOX News Channel: 2.26M
2. Fox Sports 1: 1.31M
3. ESPN: 1.078M
4. MSNOW: 1.015M
5. Home and Garden TV: 703K
6. CNN: 610K
7. TBS: 537K
8. Hallmark Channel: 516K
9. USA Network: 500K
10. History: 491K
In total, FS1 aired 32 World Cup matches in the month of June, though not all of those matches aired in primetime. Of those 32 matches, just 15 overlapped with the primetime hours, generally measured as between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET. Several also aired simultaneously to matches on Fox during the final day of group play, with FS1 typically getting the less desirable matchup.
Nevertheless, all FS1’s World Cup programming seemed to lift most of the network’s other programming. Per Sports Business Journal, the week of June 15 was the most-watched week in FS1 history by total-day audience. The network averaged 885,000 viewers for the week, 90% better than ESPN’s total-day audience in the same week. As a company, Fox swept the three major ratings categories — broadcast, cable, and news — for both the week of June 15 and June 22.
A World Cup is one of the rare sporting events that commands both a high level of interest and has the volume of inventory to genuinely lift a cable network like FS1 despite the secular decline of the medium over many years. While streamers and tech companies seem to be the favorites to land the tournament come 2030, there’s still clear value to be derived from legacy broadcasters airing the World Cup. Whether that value can justify the expected doubling or tripling of media rights fees for the next tournament, however, remains to be seen.
Alex Rodriguez had a rough go of it interviewing Justin Verlander ahead of the Home Run Derby.
Rodriguez appeared to be setting up some kind of underdog redemption angle for Verlander, asking him, “How do you explain being a late draft pick, being designated for assignment a couple of times with two different teams?”
Awkward moment for A-Rod, interviewing Justin Verlander saying we was designated for assignment by two different teams.
Neither half of that sentence is true. Verlander went second overall in the 2004 draft, one pick after Matt Bush, and was in the majors within a year. He’s also never been designated for assignment, not once, across 20 seasons and stops with the Tigers, Astros, Mets, and Giants. Being DFA’d is a process reserved for players a team is trying to get off its 40-man roster. It has never once applied to a 10-time All-Star and three-time Cy Young winner.
Verlander, understandably, did not know what to do with this.
“Me? No, you’ve got the wrong notes,” he said.
Rodriguez laughed it off and pivoted to asking how Verlander has pitched at a high level for so long, which, fine, is actually a reasonable question. It’s just not the one he’d spent the last thirty seconds building up to.
Believe it or not, NFL training camps start next week, with the rookies for the defending champion Seattle Seahawks arriving on July 17. From there, it’s a gradual buildup to Week One of the regular season, which kicks off with the Super Bowl rematch between the Seahawks and the New England Patriots in Seattle.
To learn more about what to expect this fall, we recently caught up with analyst Warren Sharp.
Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
If there’s a reason the Rams won’t make the Super Bowl, what do you think it is?
Warren Sharp: “They entered last season using more two-tight-end sets. When they suffered some injuries at the receiver position, they started using even more three-tight-end sets. Now the rest of the league knows what’s coming to a degree. The rest of the league knows that Sean McVay has made a pivot from the highest rate of 11 personnel to the highest rate of three-tight-end sets. That is kind of a card he’s already played. He’s not going to be able to play again this year. So all the other teams, like your Seattle Seahawks, from teams that he’s going to play on the schedule outside his division, know what’s coming. So that’s mainly the prime thing. Defensively, they added people in the secondary. They obviously added Myles Garrett. It’s hard to replicate what he did last season.”
What’s your boldest prediction?
“I’m bigger on the Houston Texans than I think a lot of people are. The Texans are like plus-900 to win the AFC. They sit behind the Ravens, Bills, Chiefs, Chargers, and Patriots, so they’re not even a top-five team to win the AFC. I think the Houston Texans have a chance to replicate what they did defensively and, on offense, get a lot better for a couple of reasons. Most people’s opinion of C.J. Stroud right now is very negative. They saw what C.J. Stroud did, barely beating Aaron Rodgers in Pittsburgh in a road playoff game. And then they saw him play terribly in inclement weather against the New England Patriots, a very good defense.
“C.J. Stroud did not have the best year last year. …But if you look at C.J. Stroud over 80 yards of the field outside of the red zone, the first 80 yards of the field, he actually was 13th in EPA per attempt, 17th in yards per attempt, 22nd in success rate. That is out of 45 qualifying quarterbacks. He was just 40th or worse in several of those statistics inside of the red zone. That, to me, tends to regress. I think they had a first-year play caller in Nick Caley last year. He came from the Rams coaching tree, and I think they’re going to call better plays inside of the red zone this year.”
Why do you think David Montgomery can make a difference?
“David Montgomery is actually the No. 1 rusher in EPA and first-down rate on man-blocking runs over the last two years. And so that’s a sneaky upside. Everybody’s (saying): ‘Jahmyr Gibbs is so much better than David Montgomery. David Montgomery is over the hill.’ He might be over the hill, and yes, he’s not as good as Jahmyr Gibbs, but he’s still good in this system. And so I think with a better offensive line, a better run game, and what I view as C.J. Stroud regressing more to the mean in red-zone efficiency when he’s passing the football, this Houston Texans team is led by the outstanding job their head coach does and a great defense; I think they have a very high floor. I think their ceiling is definitely in the conversation of potentially winning the AFC.”
Is there a win total under/over that you like?
“I like the Carolina Panthers under 7.5 half wins. This is a team that really had to come from behind extensively last year to win games. The only thing that’s going good for the Carolina Panthers, in my opinion, is that they play in a very weak NFC South division. But other than that, this team really struggled. This stat is just one of the more mind-blowing stats that I researched in the book because Carolina went to the playoffs. Across all 17 games combined, they trailed by 92 points entering the fourth quarter of their games. That ranked 27th in the NFL. How a team wins eight games and makes the playoffs but trails by 92 points entering the fourth quarter is a massive contradiction.”
Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, and Lamar Jackson all missed the playoffs last year. Who has the best chance of reaching the Super Bowl?
“Joe Burrow, in my opinion. Now, I think Patrick Mahomes is the easiest answer here…
“But I will go with the Cincinnati Bengals. …You look around the landscape of that AFC North, and here’s one of the more interesting things about Joe Burrow that I don’t think a lot of people know. Joe Burrow, when he starts for the Bengals because he’s been in our lineup a little bit, is eight wins and 11 losses against the AFC North. That’s a 42% win rate, but he is 23-9 against everybody else. That’s a 72% win rate. I think the AFC North is down a little bit this year.”
Which rookie do you think is best positioned to succeed?
“I do like Sonny Styles in Washington. They need a playmaker there. They’ve got a playmaker there, and I think he’s going to have an instant impact. He’s exactly what Dan Quinn needs. He fills a void for them, and I think he’s going to splash a ton. So I think the coaching he’s going to get from Quinn and the staff is really going to help him shine. And this is a team that had a terrible defense last year. The defense was historic.”
Will the Mike McCarthy-Aaron Rodgers reunion win a playoff game?
“I don’t think they’re going to make it to the playoffs, so I would say no. Now, could they? Yes, they could make it to the playoffs. It obviously depends who they play. But I just think this team is lacking in a lot of areas. Steelers fans are bigger on their receiving core, potentially, than I am. But I’ve got some interesting statistics. I won’t go through all of them, but if you compare Justin Fields, Russell Wilson, and Aaron Rodgers—the quarterbacks they had in 2024 and then in 2025—Aaron Rodgers was worse than those guys. He did not lead the team in completion rate, accuracy, yards per attempt, success rate, or passer rating. In pretty much every single critical metric, Rodgers was not better than Russell Wilson or Justin Fields, which is pretty shocking to people.”
Which team will be the worst?
“The Miami Dolphins’ defense might be one of the worst in the NFL. They have very poor personnel. Their secondary is abysmal. It’s easy to look at their receiving core and say it’s terrible, but the defense might be even worse. As a result, all these really good offenses they’re going to play are going to score points. And when those teams are scoring points, it’s going to be hard to outscore them with Malik Willis and those wide receivers. So I just think there’s a very good chance they’re going to win two or three or four games next season and be in contention for the worst team in the league.”
“Let’s stick with the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC. And in the NFC, let’s go back to the well on the Philadelphia Eagles. I think the Philadelphia Eagles were massively impacted by a terrible offensive coordinator last year who was promoted from within. They brought in a new offensive coordinator this year. I know they lost A.J. Brown, but I think overall this offense will be better. I think the defense is still elite…
“If I had to pick a second favorite in the NFC, I would probably go with the Rams. If I had to pick a second favorite in the AFC, I would probably go with the Texans.”
Do random people approach you to ask for gambling or fantasy football advice?
“I was out at the fireworks, and my mustache is just recognizable. People come up and ask me, ‘Are you Warren Sharp?’ And then they want to introduce themselves. So, I did get met there, but that was by a person who wasn’t asking for gambling advice. He was just wanting to meet me. Almost every single interaction I’ve had has been excellent with people.
“I try not to be overly negative on social media. I just try to stick to the facts and data and share my opinion. But inevitably it riles up fan bases. But, in person, when they see you are genuinely decent people. So I’ve been fortunate in that regard.”
Warren Sharp’s 2026 Football Preview is now available for purchase. Readers using the coupon code FOOTBALL will receive 50% off.
Netflix’s second crack at live baseball came with a built-in advantage: the Home Run Derby doesn’t need much help to be entertaining. Strip away the ceremony, and it’s just batting practice with stakes, and this year, MLB handed the streamer a genuine upgrade by scrapping the countdown clock in favor of a format that lets hitters keep swinging as long as they’re producing. It’s the best change the event has seen in years, and it deserved a broadcast that didn’t get in its own way.
For long stretches, Netflix delivered that. For other stretches, it seemed determined not to.
Start with the good, because there’s a lot of it. Untethering the Derby from a timer was an easy, obvious improvement, and it’s the rare format tweak that generated no real pushback. Well, besides maybe Jeff Passan. The new setup rewards hot streaks instead of racing a clock, and it made for a night with a noticeably different rhythm than derbies past. Whatever else went wrong Monday night, the league deserves full credit for finally fixing this.
The picture itself, in the moments the broadcast let you see it clearly, backed that up. The image was sharp, the graphics package was clean and legible — almost to a fault — and this was a clear step forward from Netflix’s Opening Night broadcast back in March, if only because the network mostly resisted the urge to remind viewers every few minutes that they were watching Netflix.
Mostly.
But before the swinging started, Netflix leaned on Will Ferrell, Jimmy Tatro, and Luke Wilson to open the broadcast, and the segment landed with a thud. The audio made it hard to hear what anyone was saying, the comedy felt manufactured rather than spontaneous, and the whole bit doubled as an ad for a Netflix original. It’s the same instinct that dragged down the network’s Opening Night pregame in March — a reflexive need to cross-promote the platform’s other content — just in a smaller dose this time.
Oh my God, the three guys doing supposed comedic commentary on the Home Run Derby player intros are the least funny people to be given such a national stage, without question. They. Are. Brutal. Who wrote these godawful lines for them? Embarrassing, Netflix. Utterly embarrassing.
Elle Duncan’s aside about the 1996 Derby being a topic of enduring conversation in Philadelphia, which Philadelphia sports fans were quick to note isn’t actually true, was a minor unforced error in the same vein.
Elle Duncan on Netflix’s Derby broadcast: The 1996 Home Run Derby is something “Philadelphians talk about to this day.”
But the pregame, promos, and all were never going to be the story of the night. Once the players stepped in and the swings started counting, the broadcast had to stand on its own, and that’s where the real test began.
The lounge pairing of Duncan, Barry Bonds, and Albert Pujols had the makings of the better booth, and the set itself worked. But calling live swings wasn’t where Bonds and Pujols were comfortable, and the commentary came out vanilla and subdued — pleasant, but not adding much to what was already on screen. Duncan held her own despite not being the one expected to call the action, and the read on her was fair: this wasn’t a knock on her so much as a format that didn’t play to the group’s strengths.
There’s an easy fix sitting right there, too, as The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand noted. Instead of parking the lounge as a standalone set, Netflix could use it as a between-batters destination, where they bring a hitter over for a quick conversation with Bonds and Pujols once his round wraps, rather than sending Lauren Shehadi or CC Sabathia to chase an interview down mid-swing. It would give the lounge a job beyond commentary and solve the in-game interview problem in the same move.
The preference, when the ball was actually in the air, ran toward the crew of Matt Vasgersian, Anthony Rizzo, and Hunter Pence. Rizzo was the standout of the group, sharp and insightful whenever the conversation turned to mechanics, which is exactly the kind of expertise a Derby booth should lean on. Hunter Pence brought real energy too — he was clearly locked in and into the moment, and that enthusiasm read as one of the booth’s better qualities. Where the group as a whole stumbled was in occasionally tipping past that energy into over-the-top territory during routine swings, something that applied to Rizzo, Pence, and Vasgersian alike at various points.
Chris Berman spent decades hollering his way through this exact event and never once sounded like he was performing enthusiasm rather than feeling it; the swings earned the volume. Monday’s booth hadn’t figured out that distinction yet, and by the third round of manufactured hysteria, the excitement had started to cancel itself out.
Neither booth had a poor showing. One added insight and energy but occasionally ran hot; the other was pleasant and composed but rarely had much to say. A happy medium between the two was exactly what was missing.
If there’s one throughline in how this broadcast will be remembered, it’s the camera work, and not in a good way.
I like this new format for watching on TV, I just need them to stop switching the camera angles so many times.
The Home Run Derby has one job: show the ball leaving the bat and show where it lands. Netflix, with its cinematic ambitions, treated that job as optional. Tight close-ups on hitters’ faces during their swings repeatedly cost viewers the actual moment of contact, and the broadcast leaned on those close-ups instead of following the ball in flight. On at least one stretch, the camera stayed locked on the pitcher through consecutive swings from Jordan Walker, which is about as far as you can get from what anyone tuned in to see.
they literally had the camera on the PITCHER for two straight swings by Walker
It wasn’t a matter of a broadcast finding its footing over the course of the night, either, as the same complaint kept surfacing swing after swing. The frustration turned into something close to a consensus among viewers: a Home Run Derby doesn’t need much more than a shot behind the pitcher and a shot on the ball’s landing spot, and Netflix kept finding ways to use neither. There was no shortage of suggestions for a fix, either, with multiple viewers noting that simply holding the camera on the hitter through contact and then following the ball would solve the entire problem. It’s a two-camera fix for a production with far more cameras than that at its disposal.
Dear @netflix production team and director: for the love of God, leave the camera on the batter until he hits the ball then just follow the ball. You only need two cameras for this. #homerunderby#mlb
The absence of exit velocity data compounded the issue. Between the missing numbers and the wrong camera angles, a broadcast built around a single visceral moment — bat meets ball — kept finding ways to obscure that exact moment.
Alright I’ve been silent about the @netflix Home Run Derby experience, but not having exit velocity and launch angle in a literal home run derby is akin to an attack on my life.
Then there was the non-call. Junior Caminero’s final swing of the round sent a ball down the left field line, and by the look on his face, he thought it was fair — which would have kept his turn going. Netflix never showed a replay, so nobody watching ever got to find out if he was right. A broadcast that spent the night favoring close-ups over the ball’s flight ran into the one moment where that habit actually cost something.
So Netflix, you have a just down the line fair or foul ball that Caminero clearly thinks was fair on his last swing (where if he gets a HR he keeps swinging).
This was a broadcast pulling in two directions. The format Netflix inherited from MLB was close to perfect, the picture was frequently excellent, and the network mostly avoided the self-promotional bloat that weighed down its Opening Night debut. But the actual job of a Home Run Derby broadcast — showing the swing, showing the flight, showing where the ball lands — kept getting lost to close-ups, ill-timed interviews, and a director seemingly more interested in mood than information. Netflix has the format and the infrastructure. What it still needs is the discipline to point the camera at the baseball.
The 2026 MLB Home Run Derby is on Netflix, and quite predictably, that’s led to Netflix going all in to promote its additional current and future content offerings. And with The Hawk — a Netflix comedy series starring Will Ferrell as Lonnie “The Hawk” Hawkins — set to premiere on July 16, Netflix even had the show’s stars on hand to provide commentary during the Home Run Derby player introductions.
Ferrell, Luke Wilson, and Jimmy Tatro sat at a desk on the field offering random commentary as Home Run Derby participants were introduced on Monday night at Citizens Bank Park. And for much of this time, legendary ring announcer Michael Buffer was introducing players at the same time, so the commentary clashed.
It was hard to even understand what Ferrell, Wilson, and Tatro were saying at times, with the commentary basically just serving as racket for Netflix viewers.
Even for fans of Ferrell and friends, this was a hard listen that felt very forced as an obvious promotional tactic for an upcoming Netflix series.
Here’s a look at how Netflix viewers reacted to the commentary from Ferrell, Wilson, and Tatro to open the Home Run Derby:
Maybe I’m way off, but I don’t think the Will Ferrell-Luke Wilson thing is working at all. (Honestly, I get the sense that *they* also know it isn’t working.)
This is the first Home Run Derby broadcast for Netflix (in year one of a three-year media rights agreement with MLB), and it didn’t get off to a great start.
Derek Jeter may never let Colin Cowherd off the hook.
After Jeter’s first appearance on The Herd around the All-Star Game in 2024, the veteran radio host went viral after misremembering the timeline of Jeter’s legendary career. During the interview, Cowherd asked Jeter what it was like to face Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan on the mound, only for Jeter to hilariously correct him in real time that their careers did not overlap.
“I never faced Nolan, slow down,” Jeter laughed. “No, I was way after Nolan.”
In fairness to Cowherd, Jeter’s rookie season came just two years after Ryan’s retirement.
But Jeter got another opportunity to rib Cowherd about the mistake on Monday, as the former New York Yankees star once again joined The Herd to promote Fox’s coverage of the All-Star game. And he did not pass it up.
“Before we get started, I just want to remind you … you just said, ‘Smart people make mistakes,'” Jeter said. “Last time I was on your show, you asked me about facing Nolan Ryan, so let’s just hope you got your facts straight this time.”
“Last time I was on your show, you asked me about facing Nolan Ryan. Let’s just hope you got your facts straight this time.” – Derek Jeter sets some ground rules before his appearance with Colin Cowherd https://t.co/CqKJgftqZepic.twitter.com/ERwA1TdqHH
The Major League Baseball season is approaching the All-Star Break, and baseball is seeing strong viewership midway through the season.
NBC is leading the way in terms of baseball viewership, as it replaces ESPN for the rights to Opening Day and Sunday Night Baseball. Games on NBC are averaging 2.25 million viewers according to Nielsen through 11 games, rising to 2.51 million when including additional Peacock streaming measured by Adobe Analytics. That is up 51% from games on ESPN in the same period last year, which averaged 1.66 million through the All-Star Break.
However, there are some factors tilting the scale in NBC’s favor. Switching the package from ESPN, a cable network, to NBC, a broadcast network, will naturally increase viewership. Not to mention, NBC has aired fewer games to this point than ESPN did last season. Nielsen’s updated methodology likely also contributes to higher measured audiences.
The New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox game on Sunday, June 28, leads the way so far for both NBC and baseball at large. The game averaged 3.27 million viewers according to Nielsen, rising to 4 million when including streaming. The game went into extra innings, but coverage joined the game in progress in the fourth inning due to a golf overrun.
Fox is averaging 2.24 million viewers according to Nielsen with 13 Baseball Night in America windows so far this season. A regional window on the 4th of July featuring the New York Mets against the Atlanta Braves and the St. Louis Cardinals against the Chicago Cubs, leads the way with 3.34 million viewers for Fox. That is up 7% from 2.09 million for the same period last year. That is within the range that could be explained entirely by Nielsen’s new Big Data methodology, which has generally increased sports viewership numbers, in extreme cases by as much as 15%.
ESPN’s games, including two games on ABC, have combined to average 1.12 million viewers. On ABC, Yankees-Red Sox on June 27 leads the slate with 1.99 million viewers. ABC did not air any regular-season games last year. Yankees-Kansas City Royals on the afternoon of Memorial Day is ESPN’s top game so far this season, averaging 1.63 million viewers.
ESPN’s lower viewership average this season, 1.12 million compared to 1.66 million at the same point last year, comes as a result of the shift of ESPN’s games from weekends to weeknights. ESPN aired three weekday games last year, which combined to average 1.23 million viewers, much more in line with this season’s average.
Finally, MLB Tuesday on TBS and truTV is averaging 466,000 viewers before the All-Star Break. Unlike games on the other platforms, games on TBS are generally blacked out in local markets, forcing in-market fans to watch via their regional sports network (though TBS is allowed one “co-exist” with local broadcasts). Los Angeles Dodgers-Toronto Blue Jays on April 7 leads the way for TBS, with a 708,000 viewership average. That was good enough to be the most-watched MLB Tuesday game since a Yankees-Blue Jays game during Aaron Judge’s home run chase in 2022.
TBS viewership in 2026 is up 21% from 2025, when the network averaged 385,000 viewers. Notably, according to TNT Sports, viewership among women is up 41% versus 2025.
With the 2026 NBA Finals and FIFA World Cup hitting recent viewership highs during the MLB season, it seems especially impressive that baseball is still seeing such strong viewership so far. With much of July and August not facing such competition, it will be interesting to see if MLB can build more on its viewership success.
No one is better at indirectly calling Stephen A. Smith out for something he said than Jalen Rose, and he appears to be at it again.
Smith might be on summer vacation from First Take, but that hasn’t stopped him from picking fights. Last week, Smith ignited a feud with Draymond Green and Jemele Hill after they questioned whether he should still be able to call himself an active journalist even though he no longer appears in locker rooms regularly. Smith went off on a rant where he mocked Hill’s laugh and accused her of implying that she spent more time in locker rooms than he did, even though she never made that implication.
During his rebuttal, Smith threw out that he’d be willing to debate the topic with Hill or Green on one of their various podcast platforms. And shortly after the proposal, Jalen Rose went on social media to post a vague gripe about media members sparking feuds and then offering to hash it out on a podcast.
The most phony thing amongst “media” members is “beefing” then saying I’ll go on your show or vice versa to discuss it. (see chasing clicks). LAME.
— Dr. Jalen Anthony Rose (@JalenRose) July 9, 2026
“The most phony thing amongst ‘media’ members is ‘beefing’ then saying I’ll go on your show or vice versa to discuss it. (see chasing clicks). LAME,” Rose wrote on X.
To be clear, Rose never named Stephen A. Smith, Jemele Hill, or any other media member in the post, but the timing was more than curious. And even if Rose wasn’t talking about Smith, the feud with Hill and Green must have prompted him to call it out as “phony.”
This also wasn’t the first time Rose appeared to take an indirect shot at Smith. Two years ago, Rose ripped the media for trashing athletes on the heels of Stephen A. Smith fat shaming Zion Williamson. And one year before that, Rose notably posted, “So glad I didn’t make a career of content pretending to fake troll the Cowboys.” The post came after Smith spent the morning on First Take drinking from a mug that read, “Cowboys fan tears.”
Rose later claimed he was referring to Skip Bayless, not Smith. The defense was strange considering Bayless is a Cowboys fan, while Smith relishes every opportunity to troll the franchise and its fanbase. Maybe Rose wasn’t talking about Smith this time either. But even if media beefs that lead to podcast invites are just “phony” attempts at chasing clicks, at least Smith leaves no doubt when he calls someone out.
It’s been a rough few years to be Tony Romo, and the last several months haven’t done much to reverse the tide.
The former Dallas Cowboys quarterback arrived at CBS in 2017 as a genuine revelation, predicting plays before they happened, injecting a jolt of life into a booth that had grown stale under Phil Simms, while making watching football feel like hanging out with the smartest guy in your fantasy league. The network rewarded him with a 10-year, $180 million deal in 2020, making him the highest-paid analyst in television history. In the years since, the play predictions have dried up, the analysis has grown shallower, the criticism has become impossible to ignore, and the musings that he has stopped doing the film study that once defined his preparation have become increasingly difficult to dismiss.
Romo himself has admitted the criticism is “warranted” in the past, though during a recent appearance on Pardon My Take, he was asked whether he pays attention to any of it.
“You’re live on air for three, three and a half hours every week,” he said. “It’s like you’re probably going to do something right. I mean, we do more right than wrong; otherwise, you wouldn’t be in the position you’re in. But I think, like anything, you’re going to do something wrong. I just always want — in the back of your brain you’re literally thinking about you guys watching at home, and it’s like, what would I want?”
It’s a fair point as far as it goes. Calling live football for three hours every Sunday is really hard, and no analyst goes mistake-free. But the criticism leveled at Romo in recent years isn’t about occasional miscues as much as it’s about a sustained, visible decline in the quality and depth of his analysis, which has made his good moments harder to find.
“Sometimes they don’t talk about something, and I’m like, ‘Tell me. Tell me about that thing. Was that a catch? Was that not? Was he in bounds? What do you think?’ And then deeper than that, it goes to I want to teach, and I think that’s one of the biggest things is I want people to understand why, because there’s so much of that that goes into it,” he continued.
That instinct — to explain the decision-making behind what viewers are watching rather than just describe the action — was what made Romo revelatory when he first arrived in the booth. The deeper issue, as Awful Announcing wrote last fall, is whether that instinct is still being backed up by the preparation required to execute it on a weekly basis.
“Why did they make that decision? Why did they run the ball on fourth-and-2? Well, because of the numbers in the box and blah, blah, blah, or because of this,” Romo said. “I just feel like that’s what people want. And the more people I talk to, they love it and everything. It’s been a rewarding experience.”
The PMT hosts also asked how Romo has had to adjust to being out of the league for nearly a decade and what that process looks like from the booth. Romo said the foundation he built over a lifetime in football makes that adjustment more manageable than it might appear from the outside, and that the fundamentals don’t change enough to render nine years of distance from the field disqualifying.
“Once you’ve done it your whole life and studied it the way I have, I don’t think you’re going to see anything new,” he said. “The game is not rocket science. There’s not like a bunch of new brand-new stuff coming out.”
There’s some irony in Romo delivering these answers to the same two guys who spent January calling him out after he called Josh Allen “Mahomes” during the Bills-Broncos divisional round game, with Dan “Big Cat” Katz saying it felt like watching someone having a stroke and Eric “PFT Commenter” Sollenberger declaring that Romo “does not give a f*ck anymore,” while also conceding that he “did make up for a little” with some good insight later in the broadcast.
But that’s the paradox of Tony Romo in 2026, even as he insists the years away from the NFL haven’t diminished his ability to explain it.
UFC CEO Dana White got a bit defensive after accusations surfaced on Saturday night that star fighter Conor McGregor, who was making his return to the octagon after a five-year absence, had been injured prior to his fight with Max Holloway to headline UFC 329 in Las Vegas.
McGregor lost to Holloway via TKO 69 seconds into the first round of Saturday’s fight. Subsequent reports indicated that the Irishman had injured his knee on the first kick of the fight, and was unable to continue afterwards.
Following the card, White seemed to have finished up his post-event press conference with reporters, but the UFC CEO oddly returned to the microphone to offer a bizarre defense of McGregor’s health based on the number of people who had watched a clip of McGregor prior to the fight on social media.
“So, we were talking about the guy over here earlier asking about if there had been a pre-injury. Just on my accounts, the faceoff that day is at 80 million views. So if there was a preexisting injury, someone would’ve noticed it,” White claimed. “If he was limping, put his shoes on, he ran right at him. I don’t think there was [an injury]. Anything is possible, but he sure didn’t look like it. And for 80 million just on my accounts, that number’s gotta be massive, and no one’s noticed anything. So, there ya go.”
For the CEO of an MMA outfit to claim with any authority that a fighter was or was not injured based on how many people had watched a specific video clip on social media is nothing short of unconventional. But unconventional has never stopped White in the past.
After the success of the first-ever 48-team World Cup this summer, FIFA will examine yet another expansion to its quadrennial tournament.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino told Swiss media outlet Bluewin that the potential for a 64-team tournament in 2030 “will be examined and discussed in the relevant committees after this World Cup,” according to a report in The Athletic. The 2030 World Cup is slated to be held across six nations and three continents, with Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay scheduled to host one match a piece at the start of the competition to commemorate the inaugural World Cup, hosted 100 years prior in Uruguay. The remainder of the planned 48-team tournament would take place in Morocco, Portugal, and Spain.
However, an expansion to 64 teams could chance that calculus, potentially allowing Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay to each host an entire group for the tournament, rather than just a single match.
“Every nation should be allowed to dream of participating in the World Cup,” Infantino said. “You can see that the quality of the teams is extremely high—and it’s getting higher and higher, all over the world.”
The FIFA president added: “If you don’t give smaller countries a chance to participate in the World Cup, they’ll lack the incentive to keep improving.”
It’s unclear whether the World Cup would permanently expand to 64 teams, or if FIFA would choose to expand the tournament just once to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first World Cup. A 64-team format would make for a neater group stage in which the top two finishers in 16 groups advance to the Round of 32. One criticism of this year’s 48-team format was that an entire group stage was played just to eliminate 16 teams, with the top eight third-place finishers advanced to the knockout rounds. A 64-team field would mark a return to how the World Cup group stage typically operated, just with more groups.
Assuming FIFA were to pick this format (16 groups of four teams with the top two finishers advancing from each), the World Cup would expand from 104 games under the 48-team field, to 128 games in a 64-team field. In other words, FIFA would be creating 24 games of additional inventory to sell to broadcast partners across the globe.
As most already know, FIFA will be going to market shortly after this World Cup ends with U.S. broadcast rights for the 2030 and 2034 tournaments. While FIFA have not yet formally approached media companies for bids, there are a laundry list of broadcast networks and streamers that will be interested in securing rights. Incumbents Fox (English) and Telemundo (Spanish) will certainly look to retain rights, though Telemundo parent NBCUniversal reportedly isn’t interested if the price per tournament approaches $2 billion. Netflix, YouTube, Apple, and Disney have all also been listed as interested suitors. FIFA, for its part, could also choose to sell English-language and Spanish-language rights together, should a company put in a compelling enough offer.
The expanded format, however, could pave the way for FIFA to split World Cup rights among multiple partners. With robust interest from both streamers and linear networks, and the likelihood that television consumption will still be substantially fragmented between those two distribution methods come 2030, FIFA may be wise to split its inventory among multiple partners that together can offer a mixed approach.
Added inventory from a 64-team format helps that cause. Prospective partners could be more amenable to sharing a larger tournament, since even a 50-50 split would grant them rights to 64 games each. For reference, the old 32-team format featured just 64 games in its entirety.
Prior reports suggest that media companies are expecting FIFA to command between $1.5 billion and $2 billion for the 2030 tournament. That’s more than triple the price Fox is paying for this year’s World Cup ($485 million), though that price is not at all indicative of the true market rate this World Cup would’ve garnered in a competitive bidding process.
Whether that $1.5 billion to $2 billion range is what media companies are genuinely expecting, or it’s simply a range FIFA would like to get out there in public, one thing is certain: adding 16 more teams and 24 more games to the tournament will definitely sweeten the pot for prospective media partners.
How likely it is that FIFA shift to 64 teams in 2030 is another question entirely. Two confederations, CONCACAF and UEFA, have already laid out full qualifying schedules for the next World Cup cycle, and those schedules are predicated on a 48-team field. 2030 World Cup qualifying in CONCACAF begins in September 2027, meaning any expansion decisions by FIFA would likely need to be made in relatively short order.
Of course, FIFA will need to know exactly what it’s selling anyway before approaching potential broadcast partners to submit bids. And if reports of FIFA’s plans to strike while the iron is hot after a successful 2026 World Cup are true, it’ll want to make a decision on 64 vs. 48 before long.
The Chicago White Sox selected UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky with the No. 1 overall pick of the 2026 Major League Baseball Draft on Saturday in Philadelphia.
Cholowsky has been an enormously praised prospect for a few years and was viewed as the clear favorite to be the top pick of the 2026 MLB Draft before the season even began.
So, much of the baseball world has been well aware of Cholowsky for a long while, and one would think that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred would be too. Or that he would at least practice how to pronounce the name before announcing it to the world during the draft.
But Manfred mispronounced Cholowsky’s name when announcing the first pick of the draft, which was shown nationally on NBC for the first time (for the first 10 picks).
Huge blunder by the #MLB Commissoner. Can’t happen. Not a surprise Roch was the #1 pick. Manfred has to know how to say his name. https://t.co/ulzTVyKXq9
Cholowsky was even asked by the media about Manfred’s blunder and said (via the Associated Press/KTLA), “I didn’t hear it get butchered. I heard Roch and kind of lost it.”
Still, that’s pretty embarrassing stuff from the league’s commissioner on the big stage.
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