Around 108 million fans watched the Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul fight live last Friday, making it the most streamed sports event ever. However, the stream, or rather its quality, left NFL fans concerned. They are worried that Netflix’s glitches — the visuals froze several times during the bout — would mar the coverage of the Christmas games. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones came forward in defense of the streaming giant.
Advertisement
Citing the positives, Jerry explained that the bout had an audience size comparable to the Super Bowl numbers. And the fact that Netflix managed to provide global coverage should be commended.
“It wasn’t but a couple of years ago, I recall that when we exceeded, I think the number was around 15, 16, 17 million. And might have been within the last year or two that you dared think about the numbers. What would happen if you tried to serve that much audience and so frankly, this is a real attaboy to streaming,” Jones said on the 105.3 The Fan podcast.
Come Christmas time, there are some big games on the cards. The Kansas City Chiefs will face the Pittsburgh Steelers while the Baltimore Ravens take on the Houston Texans. The streaming giant, who have a three-year $150M deal with the NFL, will broadcast them live on the internet.
Jerry reckoned that the streaming issues Netflix faced during boxing provided them “a template of what to do, how to adjust as far as the Christmas games are concerned”.
The Cowboys owner said streaming is a medium for the future and explained why he felt Netflix could pull off the Christmas coverage with minimal disruption.
Jones explains why Netflix is likely to collaborate more with the NFL
The Cowboys owner recalled that a year or two back, people didn’t know what would happen if 12 million people were viewing the game online at the same time. That has changed now.
“Now then, we’re sitting here looking at audiences that approach 60-80 million people. So, in that sense, it was real positive,” he said.
He explained that with streaming, people are “going to see a lot of football games presented and opportunities for leagues to use streaming”.
Jerry is all in for the Netflix deal, looking at its future potential. And he thinks that this was an offer the NFL could never refuse, and they rightly didn’t.
