For the first time, Netflix will be ringing in Christmas with a couple of live NFL games. The platform’s nearly 300 million subscribers around the world will be able to stream the Kansas City Chiefs battling the Pittsburgh Steelers and then the Houston Texans vs. the Baltimore Ravens. It’ll kick off with a performance from the Queen of Christmas, Mariah Carey, followed by a halftime show from Beyoncé.
Netflix is just the latest major streamer to push into live sporting events: Amazon Prime has Thursday night football, Apple has pro soccer. The play can come with big rewards but also big risks.
This may be Netflix’s first entry into the big leagues of sports, but the streamer has been getting its reps in with some lower-stakes live events, like a roast of football legend Tom Brady and the much-hyped boxing match between internet celebrity Jake Paul and 58-year-old Mike Tyson last month.
Netflix said 65 million subscribers around the world tuned in at once for the fight — the most-streamed sporting event ever. But there were some hiccups.
“We couldn’t get it going, actually, at our house for some reason,” said Elizabeth Parks, president and chief marketing officer at market research firm Parks Associates.
She was one of many viewers who experienced technical difficulties. On social media, reports abounded of issues with buffering and low resolution.
“We drove over to a friend’s across the street. They were also having problems, but they ended up … throwing it from the phone to TV,” she said.
Streaming live events is technically difficult to plan for, said Dan Rayburn, an independent streaming media analyst.
“How do you prepare when you don’t know … how long people are going to watch for, how many people might tune in just for the Beyoncé halftime show, and where are they going to come from around the world?” he said.
Streaming platforms work with internet service providers in advance to free up capacity. But Rayburn said there’s not a lot of precedent.
“What Netflix is looking to do, and the scale they’re doing it at, has never been done before,” he said.
So why even attempt? One answer is advertising, said Charles Schreger, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. “The NFL is the North Star,” he said. “That is the one thing that consistently dominates television.”
Ninety-three percent of the most watched broadcast programs in 2023 were NFL games. And streamers are eager to intercept some of those eyeballs.
