Netflix’s broadcast of the Mike Tyson and Jake Paul boxing match was a mess. I’m not talking about the fight itself — although people had their qualms with that, too — it’s the livestream, which people across the internet complained was plagued by buffering, unstable, and unwatchable muddiness.
That doesn’t bode well for Netflix’s live sports ambitions, especially its upcoming Christmas Day NFL games.
I had the same experience, having tuned in a few minutes before Paul showed up in the back of a lowrider truck. For most of the 8-round match, I couldn’t tell what was going on and just had to imagine it because the picture was such a mess. The X post below was very much what the fight looked like for me, and plenty of others said the same thing.
Netflix and the fight’s promoter say that 60 million households tuned in, and the match peaked at 65 million concurrent streams. That’s more than what’s typical for an NFL game, but fans are worried all the same:
Will Netflix pull off its December NFL streams, or will they be more like YouTube’s NFL Sunday Ticket stream in late December last year? We’ll see, but after last night, it seems like the company needs to fix some things.
Update November 18th: Streamlined wording and added viewer number details.