The American public has shown time after time that it will buy a lemon if it’s marketed properly. That’s what they got Friday night with the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight on Netflix. It was a predictably bad contest, that kept Paul on track to milk millions more from fight fans. America simply can’t look away from a car crash. Barstool Sports owner Dave Portnoy summed it up perfectly calling it the greatest con of the century.
To date, Paul has beaten nobody. His cockiness, trash talking abilities, and careful selection of opponents has produced great drama, leading the public to reach into their pockets to watch him get punched in the face. Paul’s brilliance as a marketer has him laughing all the way to the bank.
Though Mike Tyson looked his age and like a fighter who hadn’t fought regularly in twenty years, the biggest loser of the evening was not the man once referred to as the ‘Baddest Man on the Planet’. No, the biggest loser was Netflix. Simply put, the streaming company and its executive and production team were not ready for an event this big.
The decision to include Cedric The Entertainer, and Rosie Perez in the fight coverage was bizarre. Roy Jones at times sounded solid but other times he sounded like he hadn’t watched much boxing in recent years, including Mike Tyson, who he fought in 2020. Kate Scott was also an odd choice to guide discussions at the desk. The chemistry between Scott, Cedric, and Andre Ward was non-existent. Even the interviews by Amir Tyson and Sibley Coles were underwhelming, and the camera work showing off Mike Tyson’s ass cheeks was something we could’ve done without.
Ward, Mauro Ranallo, and Ariel Helwani were the three standouts who saved the night from being a broadcasting disaster. Ranallo was his usual entertaining self calling the action. Helwani did a spectacular job asking timely questions, and creating further interest. Ward brought legitimacy and solid analysis to the desk prior to the fights.
Despite the talent and chemistry issues, that wasn’t the worst of it. Netflix’s servers couldn’t handle the activity from fans looking to watch, resulting in frequent buffering, and poor picture quality. Social media was littered with reactions from pissed off fans and media professionals. It was a great reminder that a streaming platform can easily fail during live sports if everything isn’t buttoned up.
How did Netflix go into this event without a technical fail-proof structure? The fight took place at AT&T Stadium in Dallas. That suggested it’d be a big deal. Millions were expected to tune in, so Netflix knew the audience would be massive. Yet when those millions clicked on the app to watch, they received the equivalent of an internet dial up production. According to the website Down Detector, nearly 85,000 viewers logged problems with outages or streaming leading up to the fight. That puts a large stain on what should have been a historic night for the streaming giant.
I expect Netflix will learn from this and correct the problems. However, if you are an NFL owner or WWE executive, your confidence in Netflix’s ability to deliver a seamless broadcast isn’t as high today as it was on Friday morning. With millions expected to tune in on Christmas, and again in January 2025 when the WWE moves RAW to the service on Monday nights, this type of broadcasting debacle can’t happen. Should it occur, the NFL and WWE won’t tolerate it nor will their fans.
What is the NFL going to do on Christmas Day if the Chiefs-Steelers or Ravens-Texans are close in the 4th quarter and the app starts buffering, costing fans a chance to see the ending? How will WWE officials handle millions of loyal, pissed off fans if a title change or key storyline gets presented with poor picture quality? God forbid the NFL or WWE were to entertain the idea of the Super Bowl or WrestleMania airing on Netflix. No way that can happen without a guarantee of being able to deliver a stellar presentation seamlessly.
The big winner today is cable television. It doesn’t have these type of issues. Other streamers, such as ESPN+, Amazon Prime Video, and NBC Peacock have done a strong job airing games without the same mess that Netflix just endured. Friday night showed that the larger the audience, the bigger the headache. Other streamers may be in the clear right now, but this disaster should concern them too. All it takes is increased demand, and servers not being able to keep up, and a PR crisis could be on their hands too. With multiple sports leagues in business with them, and expecting exceptional production, distribution, and promotion, executing at a network TV level is a must.
Netflix has to do whatever is necessary to restore confidence before NFL games air on Christmas. At times it felt like Vince McMahon was in the booth getting his personal revenge on the service for airing a documentary on his life. That can’t happen. Executives have to speak publicly, accept blame, explain what happened, and share details of how they’ll be better moving forward. Then, they need to execute at a high level. With large dollars at stake, their stock and subscriptions will take a hit if they screw it up again.
A word of advice to Netflix execs, aside from fixing the technical problems, prioritize serving the fan over the casual viewer. Fans know cameos are going to exist during a highly publicized event. They’ll live with a minute of promotion for the Karate Kid series, but they won’t tolerate surface level discussions with uninformed celebrities. People who are watching want to be informed. The entertainment they seek comes from the fight itself. They don’t need goofy bits with Shaq and Gronk selling fights few care to see.
Networks and streaming companies have spent decades creating concerts, production packages, bits, etc., overvaluing the casual viewer. They assume people won’t stay tuned in if something other than the sporting event isn’t shown. It’s hogwash. A sporting event is similar to a movie. It’s all about the characters, storylines, and drama. That’s why the public watches.
When a casual crowd is overvalued, the wrong talent get featured. If systems aren’t built to handle a larger than expected audience, poor picture quality, buffering, and public frustration follows. Add it all up, and you get Netflix looking worse today than Mike Tyson and Jake Paul did on Friday night. Now that’s saying something.
