Netflix’s NFL debut kicked off on Christmas Day without a glitch.
Mariah Carey opened Wednesday’s doubleheader with a taped performance of “All I Want for Christmas is You” before Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and the two-time defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs faced off against Russell Wilson, T.J. Watt and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The Houston Texans will host the Baltimore Ravens in the second game as the NFL showcases four of the AFC’s top five teams.
Netflix agreed to a three-year contract in May to broadcast Christmas Day games. The streaming giant is expecting one of its biggest days since the site launched in 1998.
Netflix’s 282.3 million subscribers in more than 190 countries can stream the games, marking the first time one outlet has distributed an NFL game globally. Netflix has the games available in five languages — English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and German.
Netflix had problems streaming the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight on Nov. 14. The bout peaked at 65 million concurrent streams, including 38 million concurrent streams in the United States. According to the website Down Detector, nearly 85,000 viewers logged problems with outages or streaming leading up to and during the fight.
There were no signs of trouble early Wednesday during the game after a couple of blunders during the pregame show. The broadcast opened with roughly 10 seconds of silence because it appeared studio host Kay Adams’ microphone wasn’t turned on.
The biggest test should come at halftime of the Ravens-Texans game when Beyoncé performs live at NRG Stadium.
According to NFL Media, viewers in all 50 states tuned in within minutes of the pregame show going live and viewers from nearly 200 countries watched the lead-in to kickoff.
The NFL is playing its first games on Wednesday since the Steelers and Ravens were forced to play on Dec. 2, 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The only other time the league played on a Wednesday since 1948 was in 2012 when the Giants and Cowboys met in the season opener.
Netflix promoted its own programming in addition to the usual slew of advertisements. The first teaser trailer for “Happy Gilmore 2” was released before kickoff. Adam Sandler is back as Happy Gilmore for the sports comedy that hits the streaming service in 2025. Travis Kelce also was featured in a trailer filled with cameos by celebrities, including Bad Bunny and Kid Cudi.
The NFL played its first games on Christmas Day in 1971 with a pair of divisional playoff games. The league avoided playing on Dec. 25 from 1972-88 and shifted its full slate of games to Saturday if Christmas fell on a Sunday. Since 1989, there will have been 30 games on Christmas, never more than three on that day. But the NFL went out of its way to schedule two games on Wednesday to accommodate its $150 million deal with Netflix.
J.J. Watt, a three-time AP Defensive Player of the Year and brother of Steelers four-time All-Pro edge rusher T.J. Watt, and former NFL wide receiver Nate Burleson shared analyst duties for the Chiefs-Steelers game with Ian Eagle on play-by-play.
“I’m extremely proud of him and also slightly concerned he’s getting close to a lot of my records,” J.J. Watt said of his younger brother at the start of the broadcast.
Noah Eagle, Ian’s son, will be on play-by-play for the Ravens-Texans game with former NFL tight end Greg Olsen in the analyst seat.
This wasn’t the first time NFL games aired exclusively on a streaming service. The league’s Thursday night games are in their third season on Amazon Prime Video, Peacock streamed the Packers-Eagles game in São Paulo, Brazil, in Week 1 and Prime Video will stream a wild-card game. Also, the “Sunday Ticket” package moved to YouTube TV last year.
The largest audience for a streamed-exclusive NFL game was 23 million on Peacock for last season’s AFC wild-card game between the Miami Dolphins and Chiefs.
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AP Sports Writer Joe Reedy contributed to this report.
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
