Based on its bizarre Formula 1 golf outing, Netflix isn’t quite ready for live sports

As part of the hype rollout for this weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix (the third Formula 1 race in the United States this year, because our millionaires’ money spends just as well as European millionaires’ money), Netflix on Tuesday staged its first-ever live sporting event: The Netflix Cup, a short golf tournament featuring four teams of two—each comprised of one Formula 1 driver and one professional golfer.

The premise is clean. A lot of F1 drivers like to golf, professional golfers also like to golf, Las Vegas has a big golf course, Netflix likes to promote both its F1 docuseries Drive To Survive and its PGA docuseries Full Swing, and Netflix wants to work out the kinks in its live-streaming technology (mostly deployed for reality shows so far) and try its hand at live sports. The latter is something that other streaming services are taking more seriously these days, since you can’t watch The Sopranos on Max without the platform asking if you’re sure you wouldn’t rather watch basketball.

As you can maybe predict, though, a premise like that implies an ideally broad appeal, and that meant The Netflix Cup had to serve a lot of masters—none of which it ultimately served particularly well. Fans who wanted to see the F1 drivers play golf didn’t get enough of that, fans who wanted to see the golfers play golf didn’t get enough of that, curious potential fans who wanted to see the basic concept of golf didn’t get enough of that, and agnostics who just wanted to see something wild and entertaining didn’t even get enough of that.

And yet, there were still some of those things, even when—especially when—they didn’t really make sense in concert. That led to a generally entertaining mess of a sporting event, all of which was lovingly overseen by the mighty Las Vegas Sphere’s big smiley-face grin.

Perhaps foreshadowing how things would go, the event began with a fan rushing the F1 drivers and getting nearly tackled by comedian Bert “The Machine” Kriescher. He was there as part of the event, he didn’t just materialize in Lando Norris’ hour of need. Cameras immediately cut away before viewers could see any more of that skirmish. After it had been carefully ignored by everyone involved, the actual game started with an offering to F1 fans who maybe don’t like golf in the form of a “speed golf” hole, where the first two teams had to hit a short drive to a hole, then drive a golf cart to the hole and get their two balls in faster than the other team—no matter how many strokes it took.

Fun in theory, and perhaps a nod to the superior version of the ol’ good-walk-spoiled, but the golf-leaning commentators seemed alternately frustrated and baffled by the challenge, which they were completely unable to describe in traditional golf terms.

That meant the audience really had no way of knowing what was happening or who was winning until it was over. Then Marshawn Lynch showed up to talk to the players, and while it’s always fun to see Marshawn Lynch show up completely out of nowhere, you can imagine that he didn’t really clarify anything. After the first hole, the real problems started: With four teams of two split into two groups, the live broadcast couldn’t follow everything happening at the same time, which meant a huge focus on the first two teams and barely any focus on the second two. That spoils much of the fun for people who wanted to see the F1 drivers or golfers in the second teams.

Somewhat traditional golf (albeit in an oddly unexplained “scramble” format to encourage teamwork) ensued, except for one hole with a prize for the duo that hit the longest drive and a Squid Game-themed hole that introduced a $4 million prize (to charity) for anyone who got a hole-in-one and the Squid Game doll that would render a player disqualified if they hit their ball while she was looking at them. So there were three weird/fun holes, one being the sole Netflix-inspired hole, and then there were five regular-ass golf holes. Some people get fun and some people get golf, but neither one gets everything they might want.

That applied to the commentators as well, which included Kriescher (who was having a total blast all night, as if he has any other speed) and golfer Joel Dahmen (who seemed like a sleeper cell agent sent by Wet Blankets Incorporated to make sure that nobody ever had a good time). Dahmen’s approach to commentating was to verbally punish the F1 drivers for not being professional golfers, either by criticizing their form as being very amateur (which they are!) or by constantly dismissing any chance they had to make a good shot (which they often did!). It came across like he was mad that he wasn’t commenting on regular golf, which added to the “this is targeted at too many people” disconnect.

The solution to all of this, for future live sports presentations, is for Netflix to just decide what it wants. If it wants to do real golf, like you’d see on real TV, then do that. If it wants to do a fun cross-promotional thing with the stars of its shows, then do that. It really can’t be both, because it doesn’t work. For example, you either do a football game, or you do the Toy Story football thing. People who want to see football (or golf or racing) can watch that already. People who want to see toy football men playing toy football (or racing drivers playing golf as fast as they can) are an audience that could be served by stuff like this.

The night ended in what might’ve been the perfect metaphor for the whole event, with champions Carlos Sainz (Ferrarri F1 driver) and Justin Thomas (golfer) being presented with checkered jackets (a twist on the jackets golfers win at some tournaments), a bottle of champagne (like in F1), and a trophy. Sainz, an F1 driver, immediately shook up the champagne and started spraying it on people, including Kriescher (who joyously welcomed the opportunity to finally rip off his shirt, and everybody seemed to be having a good time. Then Sainz dropped the trophy and it shattered. The Netflix Cup had come to an end, literally, in a wacky mishmash of sporting celebrations.