00:00Well, serves you right for putting Minnesota on the Field of Dreams game, because the complaints
00:07are rolling in. The numbers are in. Netflix drawing less than, what, about 1.6 million viewers for the
00:16return of the Field of Dreams game. And of course, that is unbelievably cut in half from what they
00:23had previously on the other renditions. Nearly 6 million, I believe, for that Yankee and White
00:30Sox game back in 2021. But you had the Yankees involved in a game. You had Cubs and Reds in
00:37a
00:37game. And you had Minnesota in a game. What did you think was going to happen here?
00:43You know, I think part of it is that Netflix is sort of an entity on its own as far
00:49as streaming.
00:49Like, you can probably find yourself a free trial somewhere. But Joe, generally,
00:55to watch that game, you're watching it on a network that doesn't do a ton of sports. And
01:00you're having to pay. I know it's not a lot. But let's say you just wanted to watch that game,
01:04you basically have to pay $20. And I don't know that a lot of people want to do that. You
01:10know,
01:10like, I don't know that a lot of people want to drop the 20 and then cancel their membership at
01:14the end of the month after one month. It's not like some of the other streaming services,
01:17which are eight bucks or seven bucks, or even you get them sometimes for free with Dish or
01:21DirecTV. Like, you're just... Netflix is on its own. So it doesn't surprise me. I just think people
01:26probably didn't download the app, didn't pay for a membership, and don't want to see that one game.
01:30There really wasn't a lot of allure to it. Opening day, same sort of thing. Look, I think
01:37Netflix is doing the right thing. And I thought the broadcast was really well done. And it makes sense
01:41that they want to get into sports. But it... And by the way, Netflix is very easy to find. It's
01:46on,
01:47like, a lot of people's just remotes, too, when you buy a new TV. But it does require money on
01:53the
01:53spot. And I'm guessing a lot of people, when they said, okay, it's on Netflix, they're like, all right,
01:58let me go to Netflix. Oh, wait a second. I don't have a membership? Because some people don't.
02:02$20 just to see this game? I can cancel at the end of the month. But you sort of get
02:08the sense it's
02:09like just another... For the cord cutters, it's nothing. Everyone has it. But for non-cord
02:14cutters, they're just like, ah. I'll just pass on this one, and I'll just catch the highlights
02:18somewhere else. YouTube is very easily accessible for everybody. Click a button. A lot of people
02:23even have YouTube TV. But people with YouTube TV may not have Netflix. To have Netflix, you got to
02:29be a movie fan. That's it. You have to enjoy documentaries and movies. It's not a sports
02:35medium. Amazon Prime has become a very big sports medium. And a lot of games and even our network
02:43is on Amazon Prime or Amazon Prime Plus. That's not the case with Netflix. So I wonder what the
02:50future is with that, Joe. I wonder if they continue to push forward. Maybe they just say to themselves,
02:57you know what, let's just stick to what we know with the NFL. The NFL, we got two or three
03:01games
03:01a season. Let's stick with that. They want to get into it. But with this new collective bargaining
03:06agreement about to come up and baseball wanting to centralize the rights fees, what they're
03:12essentially doing, Joe, right now, unlike the NFL and unlike the NBA and some others, is Major League
03:17Baseball pieces together their rights fees. Apple, you get a little. Peacock, you get a little.
03:23Netflix, you get a little. ESPN, you get a little. They don't want to do that. They don't want to
03:28do that.
03:28They want to have one big check from someone like Turner, TNT, TBS, and put all the games
03:37somewhere like that. That's what they want. That's going to happen eventually. But it can't
03:41happen until they centralize all the rights. SNY, YES, Nessun, Marquee, they all got to get on board
03:49and come on board in the same spot. And when that happens in two years, it could be Netflix,
03:55but I have a feeling that you're going to see one streaming service, one network with all of the
04:00national baseball games. Yeah, well, it was funny. Remember last year, the Speedway Classic
04:06and half of it was rained out with rain delays. And even I think that averaged about the same
04:16viewership. But I'll say this, the Yankee Giants game, I think that opened up the season there
04:22had about 3 million viewers on Netflix. That's not bad. And the Home Run Derby
04:27had 5.5 million viewers, which was also on Netflix. Yeah, but that was the least watched
04:36Home Run Derby in like five years also. I will say that as well. So just keep that in mind.
04:41Yes, it was. I'm not saying it's failing on Netflix. It just, it's a more of a destination
04:46spot to have to watch something. And I think that that's what baseball is going to have to
04:50sort out, put all the games in the same spot, and you'll come to a better resolution.
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