You won’t be hearing “See ya!” on Yankees Opening Day, and Michael Kay isn’t happy about it.
When the Yankees face the Giants in San Francisco on March 25, it will be streamed exclusively on Netflix in a standalone primetime season opener, and Kay expressed his displeasure Wednesday.
“To be blunt, it sucks,” Kay said in an interview with Newsday. “It really does.”
Netflix signed a multi-year streaming rights deal with MLB, which includes exclusive live broadcasts of select events, including the Opening Day primetime game – which just so happens to include the Yankees.
The Yankees will play Wednesday, have an off day Thursday and then play again Friday in a game that will be broadcast on YES, though the network won’t have Saturday’s series finale.
“It doubly sucks because we just have the middle game,” Kay added. “And the third game is a Fox game. So, essentially, I’m flying to San Francisco for one game, and then we go to Seattle after that.”
Netflix is planning a big splash for the Opening Day primetime special.
“It’s not ideal because Opening Day, there’s a special pageantry to it, pomp and circumstance,” Kay continued. “People look forward to pitchers and catchers, that’s number one, and then number two is Opening Day. I guess if I’m Netflix, I’d want the Yankees and the Giants, too, but I know that all of us at YES would rather have it.”
Last year’s Yankees-Brewers game on Opening Day aired on ESPN and was called by Joe Buck, who showed love to Kay during the broadcast.
“That was really, really fun and nice,” Kay said. “The good part about it was I was there with my family, which I never get a chance to do. So if I could sit with my son on Opening Day, I’m going to look at that as a plus and that’s what we’re going to do. The kids have never been to California. So we’re going to fly out to San Francisco, I’ll do the pregame, and then I’ll just go in the stands and watch the game.”
The Yankees are the favorites in the American League coming into the season, and most of the games are broadcast on YES Network and the My9 channel with usually over 120 games broadcast locally between those two hosts. Amazon carries a small package of YES-produced Yankees games.