Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight scores big for Netflix
Numbers were impressive; everything else…wasn’t
[Editor’s Note: This post was updated on November 19 with additional information.]
Even though boxing has seen better days, the sport received a jolt of energy thanks to Netflix and its heavily hyped matchup between 58-year-old Mike Tyson and 27-year-old YouTuber Jake Paul in front of a sold-out crowd at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Tex., home of the Dallas Cowboys. The made-for-TV spectacle did something nobody has done in recent memory: draw a massive audience on a Friday night.
According to preliminary numbers released by Netflix, the fight drew 60 million households globally, peaking at 65 million concurrent streams around 11:15 p.m. Central Time.
The Katie Taylor-Amanda Serrano undercard drew 50 million homes, the most ever for a women’s boxing match.
On November 19, Netflix released additional numbers: the fight drew 108 million viewers worldwide, 225 viewing hours total, and 46.6 million “views”, whatever that means. Keep in mind these are global numbers estimated by Netflix and not those by Nielsen or Adobe Analytics, which are the basic measurement tools used to measure audiences in the United States.
The event was distributed to more than 6,000 bars and restaurants nationwide by Joe Hand Promotions instead of DirecTV For Business or Everpass, which generally handles streaming exclusives for commercial establishments.
The Paul-Tyson fight was also trending on social media with #PaulTyson trending on X for much of the day. But viewers used those platforms to complain about numerous issues the stream had, including the picture freezing, mics going dead, constant buffering, and, of course, the quality of the fight, which saw an easy victory by Paul as Tyson only drew eighteen punches on him in eight rounds. For Chicago-area viewers, the fight’s quality and the way it was distributed is on par with the terrible performance of our local sports teams this year and the botched launch of CHSN.
Friday’s disastrous bout also raised questions about Netflix’s ability to stream two NFL games on Christmas Day. Netflix paid the league a lot of money to distribute these games exclusively, and the NFL wants to get its money’s worth. Netflix declared the bout “a success,” but of course, that was determined weeks before the two even set foot in the ring.
Whatever spectacle this was isn’t likely to help boxing, which has been mired in decline for decades thanks to idiotic management and overall bad decision-making (whatever happened to that PBC promotion they were parading around a decade ago?) This match is just a casual reminder that boxing still exists, like every November and December when local radio stations nationwide roll out Christmas music just to prove the platform is still somehow relevant. The difference between boxing and WLIT airing the Holly Jolly format isn’t exactly striking, given they can draw people into the tent for a while and then sadly return to irrelevance when it’s over.