MLB Field of Dreams Game on Netflix Credit: Netflix
By Megan Armstrong on

In 1989, Field of Dreams came out and immortalized baseball’s inextricable relationship with nostalgia. In the now-cult classic film, the late James Earl Jones played Terence Mann, a 1960s author, who guides Kevin Costner’s Ray Kinsella to build a baseball diamond within his Iowan cornfields.

He built it, and the ghosts of baseball past came. Field of Dreams director Phil Alden Robinson made the intertwining of the past and present — the best and worst of not just baseball, but life — look fairly easy. It always looks easier in the movies, especially with fiction at your disposal.

On Thursday night, Netflix exclusively streamed the 2026 MLB Field of Dreams Game and, subsequently, took on the arduous task of recreating fictional magic in live television.

“The goal for Netflix, completely, solely, and honestly cold-heartedly, it’s, what is a major spectacle, whether that’s sports or other, that is going to grab the attention of our viewers on a global scale?” Elle Duncan told Front Office Sports upon departing ESPN for Netflix.

While spectacle is familiar territory for the streaming giant, Netflix is new to MLB. The league formally announced its new media rights deals with Netflix, NBC, and ESPN last November.

So far, Netflix handled the Opening Night broadcast between the New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants, and had the exclusive rights to the 2026 Home Run Derby in July. Both broadcasts showed promise, but left room for improvement.

Was the third time the charm for Netflix’s MLB coverage? Let’s get into it.

The pregame: a bit oversaturated, but in a good way

Wisely, Netflix opened its Field of Dreams Game broadcast with an aesthetically pleasing video montage of Dyersville, Iowa, including (but not limited to) the Philadelphia Phillies and Minnesota Twins’ players projected onto barns.

Elle Duncan narrated it to start before ceding the stage to the likes of Costner and James Earl Jones’ iconic lines from the original Field of Dreams.

“People will come.”

“As innocent as children, longing for the past.”

“The one constant through all the years […] has been baseball.” 

“This field, this game, it’s a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again. Oh, people will come.”

In the middle of that Iowan cornfield sat Duncan, Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols, and Anthony Rizzo. Duncan showed how much she’s already grown in her new Netflix anchor role, while the three MLB legends admitted their jealousy of the Phillies and Twins lucky enough to play in the Field of Dreams Game.

Netflix made use of every millisecond of the hour-long pregame broadcast, and there was a lot going on. Did we need a 60-second Brad Paisley’s “Letter to Dad” segment? Probably not! But the country star has ties to MLB, so whatever.

That blip was forgotten anyway by the time Lauren Shehadi delivered a stellar sit-down interview with Don Mattingly and Preston Mattingly.

Bonds, one of baseball’s most enigmatic legends, stole the show with his vulnerability around wishing his late father would “walk out of that corn and play catch with me”:

The pregame broadcast could be described as an hour of waxing poetic. Well, that’s exactly what it was. Was it too saccharine? Too oversaturated? Maybe in the context of any other MLB broadcast. But the Netflix crew made the trip to Dyersville to squeeze every sentimental ounce out of this game.

Duncan proved a fantastic host, as per usual, indulging in the spectacle and injecting personality with impeccable comedic timing. Bonds, Pujols, and Rizzo offered some actual game commentary, but it was a footnote, as it should have been. Honestly, it would have been weird if the Netflix approached this like any other MLB game.

Baseball’s stars, past and present, emerged from a cornfield. It was not any ordinary night at the ballpark, and, for the most part, Netflix wrote a love letter to baseball purists eager to receive it.

The broadcast: maybe not a home run, but a solid triple

Hey, sometimes truth is better than fiction.

To lead off the game, Phillies All-Star slugger Kyle Schwarber blasted a home run into the corn:

Schwarber’s bomb briefly delayed the recognition of Netflix’s obnoxiously big scorebug:

Matt Vasgersian’s call of Schwarber’s opening dinger foreshadowed his excellent call of the game. Vasgersian, Hunter Pence, and CC Sabathia jelled more naturally in their third game sharing the booth, leading to rhythmic flow.

Generally, the broadcast’s strength was leaning into their unique environment — the connective baseball tissue that made this game special — without forgetting they were there to call a ballgame.

Perhaps the best example came in the top of the fourth inning. Roger Clemens joined the booth for an in-game interview with his son, Twins utility player Kody Clemens — threading the Field of Dreams father-son theme into the fabric of the broadcast.

At one point, the Clemenses let it slip that they planned to film themselves recreating a Field of Dreams scene on the movie set after the game, and they expressed how much they love each other. But when Schwarber unloaded another homer into the corn in right field, the conversation seamlessly pivoted back to ball.

It was absolutely absurd that tone deaf BetMGM and FanDuel ads sprawled across the outfield fence, but Netflix didn’t build the stadium, so that criticism should be directed elsewhere.

The Phillies pummeled the Twins, 7-1, but there were still some highlights: one Brandon Marsh home run, two Schwarber bombs, and nine Aaron Nola strikeouts. And whatever the broadcast lacked in competitive drama, it made up for in Field of Dreams-esque anecdotes and entertaining banter about anything from corn to nerdy baseball stuff.

By the end of the night, the scorebug proved to be the broadcast’s most egregious misstep. Sure, the viewing experience was a bit of a slog down the stretch, thanks to a lack of game action. But viewers who stuck around were rewarded in the postgame.

Lauren Shehadi’s postgame interview with Field of Dreams Game MVP Kyle Schwarber was solid on its own, and then Anthony Rizzo crashed it to deliver his (actually funny?) “corny dad jokes,” validating his burgeoning media stardom.

Aaron Nola and Bryce Harper joined Duncan, Bonds, and Pujols at the desk for a thorough review of the game itself, including a wholesome exchange between Bonds and Harper, before we got the narrative payoff of Kody and Roger Clemens having a catch on the original Field of Dreams field, just like they promised they would.

The verdict

The third time was the charm. The MLB Field of Dreams Game is pretty impossible to screw up, it turns out. The pregame broadcast was the main event. The game broadcast held its own as best it could during a 7-1 blowout smack in the middle of August. What more can you ask of Netflix’s third-ever MLB broadcast?

Earlier Thursday, Pat Sajak, the iconic Wheel of Fortune host tweeted, “Does it seem a bit ironic that MLB’s Field of Dreams game—which harkens back to a simpler, more bucolic time—is being streamed on Netflix?”

Sajak’s point stands. It is ironic to stream a game inspired by a movie rooted in the 1900s. And there is something about watching baseball on Fox — including Fox’s incredible 2021 and 2022 Field of Dreams Game broadcasts — that just feels right.

But time moves on. Pat Sajak retires from Wheel of Fortune, and baseball moves to streaming. The inevitability of change is what makes nostalgia such a powerful phenomenon. That’s the crux of the Field of Dreams Game. The Netflix crew embraced the age-old traditions of the past, blazed a new path in baseball’s present, and instilled confidence in a brighter MLB on Netflix future.

About Megan Armstrong

Since first getting published as a student by the Kansas City Star in 2013, Megan Armstrong has gone wherever curiosity and stories have taken her, specializing in sports, media, music, and culture coverage. She also has an extensive background in interviewing and profiling public figures. Her work has appeared in Billboard, Boardroom, Bleacher Report, Esquire, GQ, GRAMMY.com, NYLON, Newsweek, Teen Vogue, The Hollywood Reporter, UPROXX, and elsewhere.

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