What Paul–Tyson Stream Issues Mean for Netflix’s NFL Games

Are you ready for some football?

The streamer has pulled off successful live events before, including the Tom Brady roast from earlier this year. The roast just had significantly lower viewership than the Paul–Tyson fight, with around 2 million views for its debut.

A source familiar with the matter noted to ADWEEK that Netflix has its fundamental infrastructure in place and is optimizing its systems and adding more capacity to make improvements, ensuring it will be prepared for the increased audiences for the NFL as well as the Beyoncé halftime show.

Netflix has also reportedly already been in contact with the NFL and reassured the league to its satisfaction. Plus, Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s chief content officer, said during Netflix’s International Showcase this week that the streamer was “very ready” for the games.

“They had more success than they were expecting. It overloaded the servers,” Dan Larkman, CEO at programmatic CTV company Keynes Digital, told ADWEEK about the Jake Paul and Mike Tyson match. “It’s actually a massive positive for them.”

In addition, the predictability of the NFL will play in Netflix’s favor.

“The NFL is more of a standard sport, has its standard breaks, and when people tune in and tune out will be more consistent,” Adam Schwartz, svp, director of video investment, sports at Horizon Media, told ADWEEK. “Now that they’ve had this experience with boxing, they’ll learn from it because they certainly have the technology to support live events moving forward.”

The games could also give Netflix the opportunity to engage with consumers in ways the boxing match didn’t, according to Frank Maguire, vp of insights, strategy, and sustainability at Sharethrough, an Equativ company.

“It’ll be interesting to see how they integrate that concept of shoppable on Christmas,” Maguire said. “It can often be a good way of integrating new kinds of attention-grabbing formats that are relevant to the consumer and also engaging.”

Despite any streaming issues, several experts kept pointing out that Netflix still received a massive and engaged audience, which will likely be there on Christmas Day.

Proulx put it in perspective, saying Netflix’s Jake Paul and Mike Tyson streaming hiccups don’t equate to “a moment where the industry is going to reverse course” from digital in favor of linear.

“Streaming, relatively speaking, is still something that is emerging, and especially with live programming, it is new territory that the industry at large is working through, figuring it out, and will get there. I have no doubt about that,” Proulx said. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be bumps along the road in that journey.”