Yankees' Opening Day: Michael Kay miffed that game won't be on YES Network
Michael Kay of the YES Network. Credit: Getty Images/Dimitrios Kambouris
For the second straight season, the Yankees’ Opening Day game will not be on YES.
And for the second straight season, Michael Kay doesn’t like it.
“To be blunt, it sucks,” Kay, the Yankees’ play-by-play man on YES, told Newsday on Tuesday in a telephone interview. “It really does.”
The Yankees’ opener at San Francisco on March 25 will be on Netflix. The streamer announced on Wednesday that Matt Vasgersian with handle play-by-play with former Yankee CC Sabathia as the booth analyst and Lauren Shehadi as the sideline reporter. There will be a pregame show that includes former Yankee Anthony Rizzo.
One thing is certain: It won’t be Kay on play-by-play even though he’ll be in San Francisco to call the second game of the season on March 27 on YES. Kay will also contribute to the YES pregame show on Opening Day. The series finale will be on Fox.
“It doubly sucks because we just have the middle game,” Kay said. “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.
“It's not ideal because Opening Day, there's a special pageantry to it, pomp and circumstance. 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, the Yankees’ opener was on ESPN. Joe Buck called the game and honored Kay — who was in attendance with his family — by using Kay’s signature “See Ya” call on an Austin Wells home run in the first inning.
“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.”
Anthony Rieber covers sports media and business and professional sports (you know, games and trades and things). He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since Jan. 1, 2026.
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