The story of the weekend wasn’t a 58-year-old Mike Tyson, or Jon Jones winning another title belt, or the Bills beating the Chiefs — it was Netflix.
While the Tyson-Jake Paul fight unofficially reached 60 million households worldwide, there were plenty of issues with how it was received. Streaming issues marred what was supposed to be Netflix’s first major foray into live sports, and as Awful Announcing’s Ben Axelrod aptly noted, it proved that the streaming giant isn’t ready for primetime quite yet.
And ready or not, Netflix has to buckle up. Come Christmas Day, it’s set to stream not one but two NFL games.
In a memo to employees, a Netflix executive acknowledged the many technical challenges. And while they didn’t want to dismiss the poor experience of some of its members, they wanted to consider the event a huge success. And from a numbers standpoint, it was, by all means. But it was also more than “some” members.
And if these issues persist, they’ll hear from “some” football fans.
That’s coming from someone like Howard Stern, who claimed that NFL fans would “rebel” over the Peacock-exclusive playoff game in 2023. Rebel isn’t the right word because Peacock (and the NFL) touted those numbers, but fans weren’t happy about having to dole out extra money to watch a playoff game, though they did so anyway.
This feels a bit different this time around, though. And the rebellion that Stern alluded to nearly a year ago didn’t involve any production value because that’s what’s at stake here.
Stern underscored the stakes on his Monday show, saying, “You know, I don’t know how this stuff works, but you got to make sure it works… If you f*ck up people’s football, there’s hell to pay. There is hell to pay. They better not.”
Even the non-sports fans know the NFL and Netflix are under A LOT of pressure. pic.twitter.com/W1WJOhmbaH
— Jimmy Traina (@JimmyTraina) November 18, 2024
Netflix may have owned the headlines this weekend, but if it stumbles during its Christmas Day NFL debut, it won’t be the kind of story they’ll want to be remembered for.
And as Stern said, there’ll be hell to pay.
