A month ago, Netflix was on the minds of most sports fans when the glitchy, buffering mess of a stream marred the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson boxing match. It was a bad showing. What made it even more ominous was that the streamer would air a pair of NFL games 40 days later.
Those two games are now done, and we can officially say that Netflix’s reputation in livestreaming remains largely unscathed.
There were some complaints on social media about the image quality and an awkward start with a muted microphone, but nothing approached the outburst that hit the company during the Paul-Tyson fight, which left seemingly every user regularly stuck on the main map. . The glitches were perhaps a bigger story than the rather sad fight at the center of the festivities, which saw Paul defeat the 58-year-old former heavyweight champion by unanimous decision.
Netflix has apparently learned its lesson and beefed up its servers, while also pulling out all the stops in terms of production value. That included a halftime concert by Beyoncé that honestly could have passed for a legit Super Bowl halftime show.
Both games were significantly one-sided, as the Kansas City Chiefs never trailed in a 29-10 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, while the Baltimore Ravens dominated the Houston Texans from start to finish in a 31-2 game.
Live streaming has been a work in progress for Netflix in recent years. The first foray into a live event was an even bigger disaster than last month’s boxing match, as a “Love is Blind” reunion show failed to materialize last April. The stream was ultimately canceled after a 75-minute delay, with the reunion recorded and broadcast later.
The progress is important, as live event coverage is one of Netflix’s biggest priorities for the future. The reason why: The streamer reported a peak of 65 million concurrent streams for the Paul-Tyson fight, making it by far the most watched fight of the year. The co-main event between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano also reportedly reached nearly 50 million households, which would make it the most-watched women’s sporting event ever broadcast in the US.
Early returns for Netflix’s NFL games are also encouraging, as nearly a third of its global subscribers, from more than 200 countries, tuned in to at least part of Wednesday’s earlier game between the Chiefs and Steelers.
Netflix has many more live events in store, most notably the rights to the next two FIFA Women’s World Cups.
On the NFL side, success with Netflix would be significant for two of the league’s biggest priorities, offering both a large international audience and the opportunity to prepare for an increasingly streaming future. The NFL is hardly struggling with ratings these days, but it won’t pass up an opportunity for another huge revenue stream.
