The Josh Innes Show - People Bitching About Netflix Baseball

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

I'm looking at social media and people are bitching non stop about the baseball coverage on Netflix. Let's actually breakdown the things Netflix did and why they had to do them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. Last night was the first baseball game of the year, and it was on Netflix. And I keep reading a bunch of posts about how people are pissed about how hard it is to find baseball games and all that. And I get it. I understand it. It sucks that you have to have a thousand streaming services to watch shit. And it's kind of a pain in the ass. And look, I'm probably in the minority here.

But I actually enjoy watching sporting events on the streaming platforms more than I enjoy watching them on cable. like last night's game was on Netflix. First of all, let's play a couple of commercials and then we'll just dive into this. At Desjardin, our business is helping yours. We are here to support your business through every stage of growth, from your first pitch to your first acquisition.

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Business. Like last night's game was on Netflix, right? And Netflix is going to have to promote a bunch of shit that's going to be on Netflix because Netflix is spending a shit ton of cash to have the rights to these games. Same with NBC and Peacock. Same with the ESPN app or whoever's got these games. Like, that's part of it.

And I don't expect people that are fans to understand or even want to understand or care about what has to happen on a broadcast for people to try to make any of their money back for having these games, which, by the way, when a lot of these networks get games, they are lost leaders. What is a loss leader? A loss leader is, like, we know we're going to lose money on this. Our hope is that it helps springboard the rest of our other shit to get better numbers,

therefore making up for the money we're going to lose by spending hundreds of millions of dollars and billions of dollars on the rights for games. And that's how this whole thing works. but like if you're Netflix and let's see how much did Netflix spend for baseball? How much did Netflix pay for opening day here? What is their deal? Netflix is paying $50 million per season as part of a three-year deal to stream MLB's opening night, the Home Run Derby, and Field of Dreams game. So they are paying $50 million to air basically three things, right?

Field of Dreams game, opening night, home run derby. So first off, you've got three fucking games that you have to deal with on. Netflix. Sorry, fucking deal with it. And by the way, most people who have streaming services, if you think about the streaming services that people have, what is the most common one that people have? I'm going to bet you a million dollars that I don't have that it's Netflix. What is the most common streaming platform people have? Let's see, or that's worded poorly, but Netflix is the most common paid subscription streaming platform globally boasting over 300 million subscribers. So people have Netflix.

followed by YouTube, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, Hulu, Peacock, Max, fine. So, if you're, like, statistics would show that if you have one streaming platform, you have Netflix. So if you want to see this game, you're going to see the game. But I see people on social media bitching about it. Oh, my God. How the hell can you expect me to pay for, to watch a game on a streaming platform? Why is this not on regular television? Why is it not on cable?

And I understand it. I fully understand the idea that we're in an era where now you can't just flip on your TV and be guaranteed to see opening day for a baseball game or whatever. But the reality is this. The economics of the game and the losing the regional networks for the games and all this shit, that's part of it. Part of the reality is people just haven't watched baseball on fucking TV. So you have to find different ways to engage in this and find different deals. Netflix says, you know what we're going to do? we're going to use this as an opportunity to promote a lot of our shit.

And that's what they did last night. Oh, did you see that thing throughout the first pitch, the hand from the Adams family from Wednesday, throughout the opening pitch last night, or at least brought the ball or however the fuck. I don't know. I still can't find video of this thing fucking throwing a pitch. I've looked for it everywhere.

I haven't been able to find it. People are bitching about that. Oh, what happened to just see in a game on TV? Well, it's 2026. Get the fuck over it. Like at some point, You just have to look at these people that constantly bitch about all this stuff. And I'm not saying there isn't shit worth bitching about.

Like, my biggest thing that I bitch about with broadcast is hokey announcers. Like, I hate hokey hacky announcers that are homers. So that usually is on like home team broadcast. Not people that are rooting for the team. You should. If you're employed by the Astros, root for the fucking Astros. The people who are consuming your product are probably rooting for the Astros. I just hate when people are delusional and ignore obvious.

shit because they're homers. Outside of that, do whatever hokey shit you're going to do, because you have to pay the bills. You know what I did today? I interviewed somebody from flooring decor for 10 minutes in the middle of drive time on a radio station on a morning show. Why? Because they're spending money and there's a big event and one of our guys is going out there for the event and it's for the greater fucking good. You have to promote shit. You have to do shit that 15 years ago you maybe didn't have to do, but you're doing it now because that's how you keep the lights on. Netflix is paying $50 million and they want bang for their buck. Now part of that bang is, hey, subscribe to Netflix, which you're hoping people do.

But you also want people to stay around and subscribe and watch your other programming that you're spending billions of dollars to produce. Like, look, there's a lot of shit that sucks. It sucks that there are commercials every five seconds during a football broadcast. I get that. It's part of the world. You have to fucking deal with it. It sucks.

But the people that constantly bitch about, oh, Can you believe all the games I have to watch on streaming platforms? Yeah, it blows. The worst is having to flip from a streaming platform back to regular TV and that sucks. I see people bitching about the fact that Burke Kreischer was involved last night. Do I think Burke Kreischer is hysterical? No, I don't. He's not like my go-to guy.

I saw him a couple weeks ago. I laughed at the show. It's a good time. It's got a rock vibe to it. I mean, people are out there. They're cheering. It's a fun show. I saw Bert a couple weeks ago.

I think he's a likable guy. I like him a lot more than I love. like a lot of these other guys, like we talked about Theo Vaughn yesterday. I take Burke Kreiser over Theo Vaughn every fucking day. I'm not huge on the Rogan sphere comedian guys. I'm not like a huge kill Tony guy or any of this shit. But fine. Like, you got to deal with it.

Part of it is, and I know it's hard for people to grasp that. Maybe it's different for me because I work, not in television, but in media, which, you know, you have to do shit to promote shit that you maybe don't want to promote, but it's part of the greater good of it all. if you're paying $50 million for opening day you say hey baseball I know you're losing a lot of money and a lot of your teams and revenue is going down because you're losing these regional networks and people are scared and shit if we're going to pay $50 million for opening day in the home run derby

this fucking hand is going to go out there that's going to throw the first fucking pitch and deal with it and by the way we just re-upped our show with Burke Kreischer for season two Burke Kreisher's going to be out in a fucking boat and we're going to interview him and oh by the way James Winston's out here doing wacky James Winston's shit. But like the stuff that people are bitching about. Can you believe they're interviewing people during the game? Yeah.

Tough shit. Like there are certain things. Like I have a hard time dealing with the evolution of certain things too. But at some point, you just have to accept that shit is different than it used to be and shit is going to change. And you just have to fucking accept it. You just have to accept that this isn't 1975 anymore, 1985 anymore. or 1985 or 1999. You have to accept that they're going to take chances and try different shit

because not only do they have to spend $50 million to air the games, they need you to actually watch them. That's sad. And this is why I like games on streaming platforms. And I know that there's a reason behind this and I'm sure I would ask Gypsy, but you know, I don't want to piss off the fucking dips shit that sent me the text yesterday. So I'll just Google it instead. But like the idea, no, you don't fuck that guy.

Fuck that guy. I'm going to ask Gypsy a fucking question. And if you don't like it, fuck off. Good. But I'd like to know the reason why games look better on streaming than over cable. Because it's a fact. No matter where you are, unless you're watching in 4K, like the Super Bowl is in 4K. Tell me that I'm wrong.

When you watch a game on whatever regional network you're watching baseball on, it does not look as good as it did last night on Netflix or it does on Peacock or any other things. I'm going to ask Gypsy this fucking question, and that guy can kick fucking rocks. Hey, Gypsy? Hey, Josh. What's on your mind today? You? But anyway, that's not what this is about.

Stop flirting with me. I have a question. So why is it that a sporting event looks better on a streaming platform, so like YouTube TV or Netflix or whatever, than it does on actual cable? What is the actual breakdown of why that happens? All right, no flirting, just facts. So streaming platforms often use more modern compression and higher bit rates, especially if you're watching in 4K. Cable systems, on the other hand, often cram multiple channels into limited bandwidth,

which can reduce quality. Plus, streaming platforms can adapt dynamically to your internet speed, giving you crisp quality, while cable is often more fixed in its delivery. So that's why streaming can feel sharper. So I'm not wrong on that. Like it's reality that streaming platform sports looks better than cable sports. You're not imagining it. It's a real thing.

With the right setup, streaming platforms are capable of delivering a cleaner, more modern picture. So yeah, trust your eyes on that one. All right, cool. Thanks. Love you. Anytime you've got it. If anything else pops up, I'm here. Talk soon.

All right, bye. It was clear that that Love You yesterday was an accident. And I'm probably never going to get it again. Now, there's the science. Trust the science behind all this. The science is it just looks better on streaming platforms. So I get the idea that it sucks to not be able to sit down at your house and flip on the TV and watch a game. Like, I understand where that sucks.

But, like, I would imagine, like, there's this new Detroit Sports Network, right? And that's where you're going to watch Tigers and Red Wings games, no longer on Fan Duel. Now, there's still going to be, like, this broadcast will also be featured on a cable channel, but you can also just buy the app for it and you can watch the Tigers and the Red Wings on this app. I'm not going to do that because I don't give a shit about the outcome of these Tigers games enough to watch it in better quality on an app and I already have Comcast and it should be included with that. I think that's part of it. So that's not going to be an issue.

So I'll watch the games that way. But the picture quality, like go watch hockey on the ESPN. Plus app versus watching hockey on TNT or watching hockey on whatever channel you watch hockey on. Let's say you're watching hockey on on, I don't even know what the regional network in Philadelphia is anymore. Is it still Comcast? I don't know what the fucking fan duel. Whatever the fuck it is. I'm telling, I mean, you know this.

I'm not breaking news here. The picture quality is better on ESPN Plus. You want to see great picture quality? Watch Sunday night football on Peacock. It's stupid. watch football games on a Sunday if you've got YouTube TV. So I don't have YouTube TV, but I have YouTube for watching the Sunday ticket. Watch the games on Sunday ticket on there versus whatever you're watching on your local cable channel.

It's almost disgusting how much worse it is. And then when you really think of the money you're paying to watch the, like I'm more pissed that I have to pay money to watch games on regular TV that look like shit versus paying money to watch them on a streaming service that look ridiculously good. You know what? Maybe the best picture I've ever seen, other than like the 4K that you would watch, like the Fox 4K for the Super Bowl or whatever looks phenomenal. But just for like a day in, day out sporting event picture quality, not talking about the game broadcast, not talking about the announcers because they fucking suck. But watch a baseball game on Apple TV.

A baseball game on Apple TV, gorgeous. It's like you wonder why you'd watch anything else. Then go flip a baseball game on on your Reefel. regional network on your cable provider and watch it, and it looks like shit, relatively speaking. So I understand why it sucks to have to buy a thousand different streaming platforms to be able to watch sporting events and it sucks that, you know, you just want to come home, flip on a ballgame and it's not on. I get that. I'm on your side. That sucks. But it's also 2026. And at some point, like, I will sacrifice the convenience of flipping the game on TV to see it

look considerably better. I've bought different TVs and everything, just assuming the TV sucked or whatever. No, it's the fact as Gypsy there told you about the compression and everything else involved in producing the picture, it ends up looking like shit. I mean, it's not just sporting events. Watch your local

news on your TV. It probably looks like shit too. I know it does here. So people are bitching and they're bitching about all the dumb shit that Netflix has to do. Well, you want to know why they have to do that? Because no one's watching the shit, so they're doing whatever they can to get people to watch. And they're promoting their other shit because that's why you get the rights to shit is to promote other shit.

Why do you want to have the game, the Astros games? What do you want to have them? Because it's going to bring new ears into your radio station, right? Well, then what do you do when you get those new ears there? Well, hopefully run a promo for your morning or afternoon show to promote it, which we never were able to do because they didn't give us any opportunity to do that, which was bullshit. So we had to do it in the legal ID in five seconds. So, like, you never got even 10 seconds to promote the morning. show on the Astros broadcast, it would just be like, you know, KBME, Houston.

Hey, it's Josh. Listen tomorrow. Bye. Anyway. More to come.