Following a series of complaints about the bank’s streaming, as well as the 60 million viewers that Jake Paul received for his boxing match fight against Mike Tyson, leaders turned their attention to Netflix’s second opportunity to establish itself as a top sports streaming service.
On Christmas Day, the company will heat back-to-back game: the Kansas City Chiefs vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers at 1 p. m. ET and the Baltimore Ravens vs. the Houston Texans at 4: 30 p. m. ET. Beyoncé will do at half of the second competition, drawing in devoted fans and possibly causing a rapid spike in viewers, which can provide specialized challenges. The biggest problem now is whether Netflix’s machines can do that day, too.
” We feel pretty willing and excited for the NFL on Christmas”, Netflix material key Bela Bajaria said Monday, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Outage monitoring website Downdetector.com noted a maximum of 90, 000 reported concerns as viewers attempted to tune into Paul and Tyson’s episode on Friday evening. While Paul celebrated the deluge —” We crashed the site”, he yelled from the ring—others were n’t as celebratory. Audiences complained of lower quality feeds, immediate pauses and stream failures.
Longtime journalist Dan Patrick called the manufacturing “unprofessional”, while Fox’s NFL halftime show made fun of Netflix’s regular lag problems on Sunday. ” So how was everyone’s night? : )”, Peacock’s official X account posted, that service largely held up during January’s record-breaking exclusive stream of an NFL playoff game.
The complexity of streaming services ‘ struggles during the biggest live events is not unheard of, as the infrastructure needed is significantly different from the on-demand content distribution process. Few companies manage to avoid pitfalls in their testing cycles, despite their significant viewership growth and unwarranted surprises.
In an internal memo following the Paul-Tyson fight, Netflix CTO Elizabeth Stone wrote that” the launch team brilliantly tackled many technical challenges, which the unprecedented scale created many technical challenges,” according to a Bloomberg reporter. ” We do n’t want to dismiss the poor experience of some members, and know we have room for improvement, but still consider this event a huge success”.
The NFL has long been excited about the potential benefits of streaming two iconic games with a new broadcast partner that has a reach of nearly 300 million subscribers worldwide, despite the lapses ‘ likely sparked discussions at NFL headquarters. Between July and December last year, the Netflix series Quarterback averaged more than 81 million viewing times. The two games, which will also be broadcast on traditional TV in teams ‘ local markets, are reportedly being paid for by Netflix for$ 150 million.
CBS Sports will be in charge of managing certain game productions, but the streaming company will ultimately be in charge of providing the viewing experience. The less global nature of American football than boxing may help with gameday issues in some ways, but the focus on the big screen may also cause issues. Although less internet users are typically present on Christmas Day, owners of brand-new computers and digital devices have been known to overcharge services as they install apps and games or download updates for their purchases.

Last year’s three Christmas games averaged 28.7 million U. S. viewers across CBS ( and Nickelodeon ), Fox and ABC, up 30 % from 2022. Even though Christmas is observed on a Wednesday, the NFL made the unusual decision to schedule two games this year. Since 1948, the league has only hosted two Wednesday games.
Netflix stock increased more than 2 % on Monday, giving the impression that investors have gotten over the streaming woes.
In a public note, Oppenheimer head of internet research Jason Helfstein estimated that Friday’s live viewership was roughly twice what Netflix was expecting, contributing to the issues —” a high quality problem]that ] can be easily fixed by Christmas Day”.
A request for comment was not immediately responded to by a Netflix representative.