The NFL and Netflix delivered a gift to fans by tabbing Beyoncé to perform the halftime show for the Christmas Day game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Houston Texans.
Netflix will stream Ravens-Texans and a game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Pittsburgh Steelers on Christmas. The Texans will host the Ravens at NRG Stadium in Houston, Beyoncé’s hometown.
Beyoncé will sing songs from her “Cowboy Carter” album during the halftime show, according to a Texans release, marking the first time she’ll perform any songs from the album for a live audience. She released “Cowboy Carter,” her eighth studio album, in March.
Netflix’s Christmas doubleheader will kick off with Chiefs-Steelers at 1 p.m. ET, followed by an AFC Divisional Round rematch between the Ravens and the Texans at 4:30 p.m. ET.
Both Christmas games and Beyoncé’s halftime show will be available to Netflix’s subscribers at no additional cost. Concerns over Netflix’s ability to stream live events without any technical issues intensified over the weekend following viewers’ complaints of buffering and freezing during Friday’s fight between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson.
The streaming service, which has over 280 million subscribers in more than 190 countries, promised subscribers a broadcast of four fights that concluded with the meeting between Paul and Tyson at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. But viewers noticed issues from the beginning and flooded Netflix’s social media with comments over frequent bouts of buffering and freezing. There were also some technical issues early in the broadcast, with former boxer Evander Holyfield’s earpiece and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’ microphone malfunctioning during separate interviews.
The Christmas games will be the first NFL broadcasts by Netflix, which has produced numerous sports documentaries — including the NFL docuseries “Quarterback” — but hasn’t delved as deeply into live sports until recently.
(Photo: Kevin Winter / Getty Images for iHeartRadio)
