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The buffering issues that Netflix users experienced during the Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul boxing match on November 15 were so severe that the National Football League reached out to the streaming service for reassurances about the upcoming duo of NFL games that will be streamed on the service on Christmas Day.
On Christmas Day — Tuesday, December 25 — Netflix will be streaming NFL games between the Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Baltimore Ravens versus the Houston Texans. They will be the first games to ever be streamed on Netflix (the NFL has previously streamed Thursday Night Football games exclusively on Prime Video).
According to Dan Graziano of ESPN, the NFL “checked in” with Netflix over the streaming issues but apparently left the conversation feeling reassured.
“The buffering problems that Netflix had with the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight Friday raised some eyebrows around the league, since the NFL is scheduled to broadcast two Christmas Day games on Netflix this year,” Graziano reported.
“The NFL did check in with Netflix following the Tyson-Paul fight to ask about the problems and assess the likelihood that they could repeat themselves on Christmas… But the NFL came away from the conversations reassured that Netflix had figured out what went wrong and that it won’t be a problem [on Christmas].”
According to Graziano, Netflix told the NFL that part of the issue was the sheer volume of viewership as the 60 million homes that streamed that fight represented an “unprecedented scale for them of broadcasting a live sporting and contributed to some of the challenges they faced.”
60 million households around the world tuned in live to watch Paul vs. Tyson!
The boxing mega-event dominated social media, shattered records, and even had our buffering systems on the ropes. pic.twitter.com/kA8LjfAJSk
— Netflix (@netflix) November 16, 2024
With just over a month until Netflix’s Christmas Day NFL games, it looks like both the league and the streaming service are lucking out with the matches they’ve wound up with, certainly when comparing it to the upcoming Thanksgiving Day slate (Thursday, November 28), which features matchups between the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions, New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys, and Miami Dolphins and Green Bay Packers.
