Netflix may have gotten 60 million households to watch their fight between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson, but they did not reveal how many of those households were cursing the streaming service in frustration as they endured buffering issues while trying to watch the heavily promoted clash.
Howard Stern is warning the streamer to get their act together before they attempt to stream two marquee NFL games on Christmas Day.
“People are pissed,” he told his Sirius XM listeners Monday. “You fuck people’s football, there is hell to pay. You better not. I don’t know how this stuff works, but you’ve got to make sure it works.”
As Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy wrote on X: “Im in the classic torture chamber where I cant tell if my internet keeps going out or whether #netflix is just constantly buffering and unwatchable for everybody,” he wrote on X earlier in the night before later adding, “So the reports are in. #netflix wasnt ready for this. This is unwatchable.”
Netflix, meanwhile, issued a rather glib response to subscriber frustration, telling fans on Instagram, “The boxing mega-event dominated social media, shattered records, and even had our buffering systems on the ropes.” Which quite the spin: It’s only because we were so successful that our live viewing system didn’t quite work.
While Bloomberg reported that CTO Elizabeth Stone wrote in an internal email to employees, “This unprecedented scale created many technical challenges, which the launch team tackled brilliantly by prioritizing stability of the stream for the majority of viewers. 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.” (Which is funny, because being a bit dismissive is exactly what the public message sounded like, no?).
On Dec. 25, Netflix will broadcast the Super Bowl LVII-winning Kansas City Chiefs taking on the Pittsburgh Steelers, and then the Houston Texans with the Baltimore Ravens. Beyoncé be at the stadium for the halftime show and, unlike her last high-profile Houston visit, is expected to perform. This will mark the first time she’ll sing tracks from her Cowboy Carter album live.
“Last year, we decided to take a big bet on live — tapping into massive fandoms across comedy, reality TV, sports and more,” said Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria in a previous statement. “There are no live annual events, sports or otherwise, that compare with the audiences NFL football attracts. We’re so excited that the NFL’s Christmas Day games will be only on Netflix.”
