The NFL is trusting Netflix, a new streaming partner, to handle broadcasts on Christmas day. That includes the infrastructure required to handle what could be tens of million of viewers streaming a live event all at once. Complaints across the internet of connection issues during Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson could have some NFL fans nervous, and it might even have the NFL’s attention.
“Sheesh major bandwidth issues and outages not good,” wrote Aaron Wilson. “NFL watching closely.”
Awful Announcing put out the bat signal to gather more reports of Netflix having issues, asking for videos and photos. To be fair, the vast majority of people (myself included) appear to be fine. But there are plenty of reports of excessive buffering or the stream not working altogether.
Both of those reports were well before the main card even started, while viewership is likely way lower than the eventual peak. As the fight came closer to starting, buffering and freezing issues worsened with AA posting their own problems after being buffer-free previously.
A quick though unscientific look at Netflix’s Twitter/X mentions shows problems for many attempting to watch.
Here is a screenshot from downdetector, a user-report portal for different websites. Netflix was receiving a significant volume of reports throughout the event. It is hard to tell if this was just unfortunate timing for them with an unrelated issue, or if it’s because of the live event being streamed on their platform.
Netflix is a streaming giant that has over 282.7 million paid subscribers to their service, so they are not new to handling a massive audience. But NFL games will draw new users and add on top of the already existing user base. While people in the United States and abroad stream their favorite holiday movies or other television programs, there will likely be close to 10 million devices streaming NFL football.
According to Sports Business Journal, there were 23 million people streaming the AFC Wildcard Game last year on Peacock during their exclusive broadcast. Christmas won’t be playoff games, but holiday crowds have been strong for the NFL in the past, and far more people subscribe to Netflix than they do to Peacock.
While the Paul-Tyson broadcast numbers are not yet known, I would be surprised if the peak surpasses the amount during a primetime NFL game.
The Pittsburgh Steelers will play the Kansas City Chiefs on Christmas, streaming exclusively on Netflix. Then comes the Baltimore Ravens versus the Houston Texans also on Netflix. According to NBC Sports, advertising slots are already sold out for those Christmas broadcasts. The game will be shown on television in local markets but given how wide Steelers’ Nation expands, it could mean plenty of problems for those not in the Pittsburgh or Kansas City area.
If the issues tonight are directly related to the boxing event, let’s hope Netflix uses it to correct their streaming problems before their big partnership with the NFL. The only silver lining might be the fact that they have more than a month to correct their problems before the Steelers kickoff.
