There’s been plenty of chatter this week about whether Netflix is ready to air a pair of marquee NFL games on Christmas Day following the streamer’s technical difficulties during last week’s Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight.
But that doesn’t seem to be a concern for the NFL’s chief media officer, Brian Rolapp.
Appearing at the Sports Business Journal Media Innovators conference, Rolapp portrayed confidence in Netflix’s ability to deliver on the big day.
“No, we’re not worried.”
Brian Rolapp, #NFL’s Chief Media and Business Officer, discusses the upcoming Christmas Day doubleheader and the preparation behind it.#SBJMI #NFL #Streaming #SportsBusiness pic.twitter.com/E6tLYpv31n
— Sports Business Journal (@SBJ) November 20, 2024
“No, we’re not worried,” Rolapp said. “We’ve worked a ton with Netflix getting ready for this. I think there’s a reason they did the fight when they did the fight. Look, what they do is hard. Migrating large events to the internet infrastructure has been a process.”
Concerns over whether the product will be ready for Christmas Day are valid. The Tyson-Paul buffering issues were certainly not isolated. And when you compare Netflix’s history of live event roll-outs to a platform like Amazon’s Prime Video, which launched an entire package of NFL games flawlessly, it’s reasonable to be skeptical.
It doesn’t help for the NFL to be publicly concerned however, at least at this stage. With over a month to go before Netflix’s broadcasts, there’s still time to work out any kinks in their infrastructure.
If Netflix fails to deliver on Christmas Day, real hell will be raised. Then, it’d be reasonable for the NFL and other leagues mulling deals with Netflix to seriously reconsider.
