Netflix knows boxing match was ‘poor experience’ for some users, but looks ahead
Netflix knows boxing match was ‘poor experience’ for some users, but looks ahead
In a memo for employees, Netflix CTO Elizabeth Stone acknowledged there were some issues in delivering the Paul vs. Tyson fight to viewers.
The public line Netflix toed after its livestream of a boxing match between YouTuber Jake Paul and former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson was that from a ratings standpoint, the fight was a massive success. The streamer said that 60 million people watched the match, but tens of thousands who tried experienced buffering issues or some similar problem with the stream. The company is acknowledging that its stream of the Paul vs. Tyson fight was a bit of a disaster in some respects, but is confidently moving forward with plans to stream two NFL games on Christmas Day.
Key Details:
- In an internal memo, Netflix’s CTO said the stream saw “technical challenges,” and was a “poor experience” for some viewers.
- The NFL has had conversations with Netflix about the issues, but remains confident about its ability to stream games.
- The streamer is also due to begin airing weekly episodes of “WWE Raw” in January.
Despite the rosy edifice the company is trying to project, Netflix knows it had a lot of trouble delivering the stream of the fight to fans. The website Downdetector, which tracks large-scale streaming outages, recorded over 1 million global complaints about the stream from Netflix viewers, with more than half a million coming from the United States.
Netflix’s chief technology officer Elizabeth Stone wrote a memo to employees about the quality of the stream, acknowledging that many viewers had a hard time watching.
“This unprecedented scale created many technical challenges, which the launch team tackled brilliantly by prioritizing stability of the stream for the majority of viewers,” Stone wrote. “I’m sure many of you have seen the chatter in the press and on social media about the quality issues. We don’t want to dismiss the poor experience of some members, and know we have room for improvement, but still consider this event a huge success.”
The problems drew the attention of more than just disgruntled subscribers who found themselves unable to watch the fight. One industry source told Front Office Sports that the NFL was tracking the issues, though it was somewhat glad that these bugs arose with enough time for Netflix to fix them before it offered two pro football games on Christmas.
“There were clearly a lot of emails and calls flying around over the weekend,” the source said. “What happened was definitely noted, and there were conversations.”
The league is still confident that Netflix can deliver the Kansas City Chiefs vs. Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens vs. Houston Texans games without major interruptions on Christmas. But there’s no denying the NFL is taking a bit of a risk offering streaming-exclusive games on a service that’s still trying to work out its live-streaming problems.
Netflix was hesitant to join the live sports streaming game for a long time, finding the financial details of chasing live sports challenging. It’s finally in a position to become a leader in live sports streaming, but it has to sort out the technical issues of offering events at such a huge scale.
Netflix
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