Questions are being asked about Netflix’s ability to cope with live events after its stream of the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson boxing match experienced a number of issues.
In the lead-up to the fight on Friday night (Nov. 16), viewers had to deal with buffering and sound outages.
Many fans took to social media to express their frustration. Streaming media expert Dan Rayburn wrote on LinkedIn: “I’m testing the stream on a few devices and seeing massive buffering, pixelated video and very slow app loading times.”
Netflix hasn’t addressed the problems but has said 60 million households around the world watched the Paul-Tyson main event live, peaking at 65 million concurrent streams. Nearly 50 million households globally tuned in live for the co-main event of Amanda Serrano vs. Katie Taylor 2.
Earlier this morning, Netflix said Beyoncé will perform during its Christmas Day Houston Texas-Baltimore Ravens NFL game, which is likely to attract many non-pro football fans to the streamer.
Speaking about the impact on Netflix’s reputation as it starts to move into the sports market, analyst Paolo Pescatore told TVBEurope: “It can’t be good given all the negative publicity around such a huge live event.
“This is a hard and important lesson which Netflix will be working tirelessly hard to address,” he said. “Ultimately a serious test of Netflix’s resources as it continues to focus on more live programming including sports. Entertainment and sports franchises will be monitoring this very closely as they evaluate their own future streaming rights deals.”
Netflix’s move into live streaming is all about offering a broad portfolio of programming to cater for the entire family, Pescatore said. “Therefore, the streamer needs to retain customers as well as sign up new subscribers. For now, its live sports position is quite small compared to others.
“Naturally all eyes now turn to Christmas Day as fans will not want to miss that winning touchdown,” he said. “The streamer can ill afford another TKO!”
