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Netflix is taking a leap of faith with its NFL coverage on Christmas Day.
After years of scoffing at live sports, the streaming platform made a splash, reportedly shelling out an estimated $75 million a game on Christmas coverage over the next three seasons.
For most entities, such an investment could prove harrowing. For Netflix, it's merely a drop in the bucket — the platform's reported market capitalization figures north of $395 billion as of Dec. 20.
Between ad revenue and a potential boost to subscriber count, Netflix should be sitting in the green once the terms of its three-year deal with the Shield are exhausted. The court of public opinion remains an important battleground for streaming behemoths, however. And if Netflix's NFL coverage is anything like the sputter-filled outburst that characterized Netflix's broadcast of Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul, it could be a long night on socials.
So, just how do Netflix and the NFL plan to bypass the lag incidents that littered the Tyson vs. Paul joust? The Sporting News has the rundown.
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Netflix invested a sizable amount of money into obtaining the NFL's Christmas Day broadcasts. That decision isn't merely a one-off, per Desser Sports Media's Ed Desser. Rather, it's an investment into the future of sports broadcasting, a future Netflix wants to have a sizable share in.
“The NFL is always looking at futures, and this is about the next generation of power players in the media space, which unquestionably Netflix has become,” Desser told The Athletic's Richard Deitsch.
MORE: How many people watched Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson?
The Tyson vs. Paul fight was a major success in terms of viewership, reportedly garnering 65 million live concurrent streams and more than 100 million viewers across the globe, per Netflix's official release. But the actual quality of the broadcast left something to be desired; buffering was ever-present, intensifying during the final two bouts of the night — Katie Taylor vs. Amanda Serrano and Tyson vs. Paul.
Netflix servers tonight pic.twitter.com/3QNl5BQ3ld
— Dallas Texas TV (@DallasTexasTV) November 16, 2024The issues prompted a sea of complaints from Netflix subscribers, raising concerns that this year's slate of Christmas games could suffer a similar fate.
It’s all fun and games tonight @netflix, but if you ruin my family’s Christmas because we can’t watch the Steelers… there will be real hell to pay pic.twitter.com/wKAlwY3uJQ
— Tone Digs (@ToneDigz) November 16, 2024That could very well happen. Netflix is taking some steps to avoid such mayhem taking shape, though. The first involves outsourcing production of the games to CBS and enlisting NFL Media to handle pre-halftime and postgame coverage.
The streaming giants have employed a similar method to building up its collection of on-air talent, constructing a motley crew of analysts and reporters to take the reins of the Christmas broadcasts. It seems Netflix prefers entrusting those with experience running NFL broadcasts as opposed to trying to chart its own path with coverage fresh out of the gate.
Can they avoid the disastrous buffering that — among other things — sullied the Tyson and Paul bout? It's hard to say at the moment.
Suffice to say, Netflix better be on its Ps and Qs when the Yuletide rings. If not, the streaming supernova could find itself on the wrong end of social media tirades galore.
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