Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson attracted more than 100 million total viewers to watch the boxing match between a social influencer against an all-time great heavyweight but the event wasn’t without distractions thanks to a multitude of streaming issues at Netflix.
With a platform that boasts over 282 million subscribers worldwide, Netflix has only dabbled in live event programming over the years but that business ramps up in a massive way starting in December with a pair of NFL games on Christmas day followed by the debut of WWE’s flagship show Monday Night Raw in January. While there were plenty of complaints about streams freezing, dying or just becoming inaccessible during the fight, Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria says the experience was a necessary growing pain as the company moves more and more into live streaming.
“We expected a big number, for sure,” Bajaria said during a press event on Wednesday. “It was a big number. But again, you don’t know, and you can’t learn these things until you do them so you take a big swing. Our teams and our engineers are amazing, moved super quickly, and stabilized it, and many of the members had it back up and running pretty quickly.
“But we learn from those things. And we’ve all obviously done a lot of stuff to learn and get ready for the NFL and Beyoncé at halftime and so we’re totally ready and excited for WWE.”
WWE inked a huge 10 year deal worth $5 billion to move Raw to Netflix from the USA Network as the company that shares space with the UFC under TKO Group Holdings continues to embrace streaming platforms for major shows and events.
A few years ago, WWE shifted focus from pay-per-view to what they now call “premium live events” that currently air on the Peacock network exclusively with fans required to have a subscription to that service but pay no other cost to watch those shows.
Now WWE is banking on Netflix providing the company an even bigger platform starting in January and that relationship could potentially serve as a harbinger for the UFC’s upcoming broadcast rights deal with negotiations kicking off in 2025.
But issues over the stability of streaming at Netflix had many fans concerned about future live broadcasts but Netflix seems ready to answer the call after a few unexpected hiccups.
“Whenever we do live events, we want it to go smoothly for every single one of our members,” Bajaria said. “That’s really important—also, to put it in perspective, it was 65 million concurrent streams, right? It was a very successful night. A lot of people [watched], the scale was very big, which is great. There’s a lot of interest in it.”
As of now, the UFC’s deal with ESPN runs through the end of 2025 so there’s no telling if Netflix could potentially become a player for the broadcast rights deal but talks are expected to begin early next year.
While streaming problems plagued the Paul vs. Tyson card, WWE chief content officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque admitted that for over 60 million viewers, the professional wrestling outfit won’t complain about a few bumps in the road.
“I’ll just say, if it blinks a couple of times and we do 60 million, I’m good with that,” Levesque said with a laugh.
