The live broadcast of the boxing match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson, like that of the other matches, was plagued by server problems and lag of all kinds.
If we were to base the answer to the question posed in the title on what happened last Friday with the boxing match between Jake Paul e Mike Tyson we would be dealing with a firm no. The event, advertised by the Los Gatos giant for months and months, certainly obtained very interesting feedback, reaching 60 million homes. A success, if we were to rely on this metric alone. Yet, as the current events have taught us, all that glitters is not gold because the event was broadcast live on Netflix it was a real nightmare for those who followed it in real time. Continuous lag, pixelated images and so on and so forth.
The demonstration that, at least for the moment and despite their efforts, from a purely technical point of view in terms of live events offered live, the streaming giants are light years behind traditional TV (via cable or otherwise) which they try in every way to supplant and obscure. An exploit, that of the meeting Paul VS Tyson which casts an extremely disturbing shadow ahead of Netflix’s upcoming live sports commitments scheduled for the holidays. Which, in the event of technical flaws, could turn into an exponentially bigger nightmare considering that in the halftime show of the NFL Christmas match between the Houston Texans and the Baltimore Ravens the one performing in concert will be none other than Beyoncé. A name that, alone, weighs as much as those of Jake Paul and Mike Tyson added together and multiplied by a thousand.
Paul VS Tyson: a boring match, a terrible performance by Netflix (which downplays it)
According to data provided by Bloomberg, 100,000 complaints were received by Downdetector about the terrible quality of the Netflix live broadcast during a meeting which, in addition to being a boring sideshow, offered a quality that made one regret the 8-bit graphics of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! on the NES. It seems certain that Netflix’s servers were not ready to handle the mass of people who flocked to the platform for the live broadcast which, in reports on DT, is described as poor, with buffering and frequent interruptions.
On the former Twitter, the important audience numbers were celebrated by the official profile of the red N with a post in which we can read that: “60 million households around the world tuned in live to watch Paul vs. Tyson! The boxing mega-event dominated social media, shattered records and even put our buffering systems on the ropes”.
A tweet that smacks of a bit of mockery, as does the message Elizabeth StoneCTO of Netflx, issued to the employees and in which we can read: “This unprecedented achievement created many technical challenges, which the launch team addressed brilliantly by prioritizing streaming stability for the majority of viewers. I’m sure many of you have seen the comments in the press and on social media regarding to the live quality issues. We don’t want to ignore the terrible experience of some users and we are aware that there is room for improvement, but we still consider this event a huge success”. In short, were there any problems during the live broadcast? “Yes, but nothing serious”.
Complaints, concerns and court cases
On social media there were many complaints about the disservice and expressions about concerns for the future of live streaming sport on Netflix, considering the aforementioned partnership with the NFL (but there is also the WWE). There are those who accuse Netflix of being rubbish by accompanying the tweet with a video of the pixellated screen stuck in buffering during the match, those who urge people who have decided to skip the boxing match entirely to prepare for the frustrations that will follow I arrived with football games on the agenda while hashtags like #NetflixCrash and #Unwatchable became trending for the entire duration of the event which, among other things, didn’t just see Paul and Tyson fighting. The famous American sports commentator Skip Bayless he certainly used more urban words, but the substance of the facts remains that of an extremely poor experience. Also on X Bayless wrote: “I’ve had streaming issues while streaming on Netflix and am concerned about freezes and buffering during Paul-Tyson. I imagine the servers don’t have the bandwidth needed to handle an event of this global scale”.
As was obvious, there were also those who, exasperated by the matter, decided to take legal action with the inevitable class action. Let’s talk about Ronald “Blue” Dentona resident of Hillsborough County, Florida, and a Netflix subscriber. The man sued the multinational company in a Florida state court. The lawsuit, filed Monday, seeks unspecified monetary damages and class action status on behalf of other affected consumers. According to WFLA-TV, the lawsuit accuses Netflix of breach of contract and deceptive trade practices under Florida state law. Denton’s complaint alleges that Netflix was “grossly unprepared” for the strong demand for the Paul-Tyson fight and that the live broadcast was “unwatchable” due to technical problems that arose from this inadequacy.
Problems which, again according to the complaint, should have been foreseen after the failure, in April 2023, of the live reunion of the dating show Love is blind. The program was supposed to be broadcast live, but, after 19 hours of postponements due to technical problems, it was broadcast to the public on a deferred basis. In a few weeks we will have the opportunity to find out if Netflix will have capitalized on this – terrible – experience or if everything will repeat itself for the umpteenth time.
