Netflix has taken note of the complaints and is vowing to make improvements. On Saturday, the streaming platform revealed that 60 million viewers tuned in to watch the highly anticipated Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight on Friday night at AT&T Stadium. However, many fans reported issues during the broadcast, including freezing and crashing of their streams.
Fans across both sides of the Atlantic faced major issues such as low image quality, extended buffering, and intermittent audio during Friday's bout between Tyson and Paul. The streaming service has now issued a statement admitting poor streaming quality that left millions of users fuming and has vowed to improve its service in the future.
Netflix Admits Fault
"This unprecedented scale created many technical challenges, which the launch team tackled brilliantly by prioritizing stability of the stream for the majority of viewers," Netflix CTO Elizabeth Stone wrote to employees, according to Bloomberg.
"I'm sure many of you have seen the chatter in the press and on social media about the quality issues.
Meanwhile, hundreds of viewers took to social media to voice frustrations about error messages, with "#unwatchable" trending on X.
According to Downdetector, a platform that monitors online outages, over 80,000 users reported problems by 10:35 PM New York time on Friday.
Despite the technical issues, Netflix considers the event a success, reporting that as many as 65 million households were watching at its peak.
"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," Stone added.
Room for Improvement
Netflix's streaming problems are significant, especially with the platform scheduled to broadcast an NFL doubleheader on Christmas featuring the Chiefs vs. Steelers and Ravens vs. Texans.
"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 had our buffering systems on the ropes," Netflix wrote on X on Saturday.
Friday's match marked Netflix's debut in streaming live boxing events and one of its initial ventures into live event broadcasting. This is an area Netflix has expressed interest in expanding, as it is set to become the new home of WWE "Raw" starting in 2025.
The 27-year-old Paul defeated the 58-year-old Mike Tyson by unanimous decision.
"Boxing is ebbs and flows, ups and downs, big events, small events, medium-size events," Nakisa Bidarian, Paul's promoter, said after the bout. "Our philosophy is it's not about what is the decision that happens in the ring. It's about the attitude that you have and the product you create and how you entertain the fans. And there's no more entertaining of an athlete than Jake Paul."
