Seeing the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight interrupted by Netflix streaming issues had NFL executives fearing the same happening on Christmas for their two-game spectacle.
It’s one thing to see an uncompetitive fight deal with issues.
It’s another when it’s the NFL, America’s sports king, with millions being wagered and fantasy football players tracking every move.
The NFL is planning to make Christmas Day games part of its rotation and this year’s slate includes what should be two excellent games in Chiefs-Steelers and Ravens-Texans.
The NFL had enough concern that it reached out to the streaming giant and the league reportedly came away satisfied with Netflix’s explanations.
“The NFL did check in with Netflix following the Tyson-Paul fight to ask about the problems and assess the likelihood that they could repeat themselves on Christmas,” Dan Graziano and Jeremy Fowler reported for ESPN. “Netflix said the fight reached 60 million homes, and apparently part of the explanation to the league was that the unprecedented scale for them of broadcasting a live sporting event contributed to some of the challenges they faced.
“But the NFL came away from the conversations reassured that Netflix had figured out what went wrong and that it won’t be a problem for Chiefs-Steelers or Ravens-Texans on Dec. 25.”
Netflix paid $150 million for the two games — $75 million each — and will also have at least one holiday game in each of the next two seasons, per the Wall Street Journal.
The NFL, as ESPN noted, has partnered with other streaming services such as Amazon, Peacock and ESPN+, but this will be their first partnership with Netflix.
The enormity of the games on the AFC playoff picture, the fact they are on a holiday where most families will be gathered indoors and the matchups involving some of the game’s biggest stars in Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes are likely to lead to massive viewership.
For context, the Cowboys-Commanders Thanksgiving game last year drew 41.8 million viewers and that was a 45-10 Dallas blowout.
Obviously partnerships are built on trust and Netflix would conceivably hurt its standing should NFL fans have to deal with the constant buffering interruptions that slowed last Friday’s stream.
Netflix CTO Elizabeth Stone told employees in an internal memo that the company has “room for improvement,” according to Bloomberg.
“This unprecedented scale created many technical challenges, which the launch team tackled brilliantly by prioritizing stability of the stream for the majority of viewers,” Stone wrote. “I’m sure many of you have seen the chatter in the press and on social media about the quality issues.
“We don’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.”
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones seems hopeful Netflix did learn some lessons.
“Frankly, this is a real ‘attaboy’ to streaming,” Jones said on 105.3 The Fan. “I think that game did do just that and give Netflix the template of what to do, how to adjust as far as our Christmas games are coming.
“They’ll get in and work the kinks out of, the kind of things they were dealing with the other night.”