Netflix on Saturday revealed 60 million households worldwide spent (wasted?) Friday evening watching two annoying windbags pummel each other for money.
Oh yes, the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul “boxing match” apparently drew 60 million for its buggy live broadcast, according to the streaming giant’s Saturday estimate.
Netflix said the broadcast pull had “our buffering systems on the ropes.”
Fans who are worried about watching the NFL this Christmas or WWE Raw in January might be heartened to know the Tyson-Paul clown show drew much more of an audience share than your average football game or wrestling match.
In comparison, Amazon is reportedly averaging 13 million viewers a week for its Thursday night NFL broadcasts, per Front Office Sports. Last Monday’s broadcast of WWE Raw drew a little more than 1.5 million viewers, per Wrestlenomics.
Last Christmas, the NFL brought in an average viewership of 29.2 million for the Kansas City Chiefs-Las Vegas Raiders game, likely heightened by intrigue in Taylor Swift’s attendance.
With the Chiefs playing the Pittsburgh Steelers on one of the Netflix broadcasts and Swift’s attendance a definite possibility, the streamer could be attracting around 30 million viewers for that Christmas broadcast.
While Friday’s Tyson-Paul broadcast had its glaring issues (both in the ring and with the live-streaming), Netflix has time to amend its infrastructure before the holidays and its WWE broadcasts next year.
For bigger events than regular-season NFL games and WWE matches, Netflix might have its hands full with mounting a problem-free broadcast.
