Global streaming service Netflix has announced a partnership with sports agency and boxing promoter Most Valuable Promotions (MVP) for a new boxing event headlined by a bout between social media star Jake Paul and legend of the sport Mike Tyson.
The event will take place at the 80,000-capacity AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on July 20, and will be streamed live on Netflix.
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That venue has hosted a number of boxing cards in the past, most recently staging the welterweight world title unification bout between Yordenis Ugas and Errol Spence Jr, which drew over 40,000 fans.
In 2021, the venue broke the all-time record for boxing attendance at an indoor venue when it drew 73,126 people to watch the super-middleweight title unification fight between Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez and Billy Joe Saunders.
It is unknown whether the main event Tyson vs Paul fight will be staged as an exhibition or as a genuine professional bout with doubts lingering about the recent health of Tyson, who will be 58 at the time of the event.
The Paul vs Tyson fight will be the third live sports event created by Netflix, following the Netflix Cup golf competition and Netflix Slam tennis competition.
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By GlobalDataIts announcement, with a card of fights yet to be revealed, reaffirms Netflix’s commitment to staging live sports events.
This comes in spite of the fact that in 2023 the company’s co-chief executive Ted Sarandos stated that it did not see a path to profitability in that sector.
Despite Sarandos’ doubts at that point, Netflix has now heavily swung into not only hosting live sports events but also purchasing the rights to others.
In January, the streaming service announced a deal with professional wrestling promotion WWE to broadcast its flagship Monday Night Raw live show in a number of global territories from 2025 onwards.
Beginning in January 2025, Netflix will broadcast the weekly 3-hour live show both domestically in the US, as well as Canada, the UK, and across Latin America. The company added that more regions will be added to the deal during its length, which is rumored to be as long as 10 years.
Netflix reportedly paid around $5 billion for the rights to Raw, which at 31 years old is one of the longest-running weekly episodic sports TV shows in the world.
