Global streaming giant Netflix has claimed that over 60 million households worldwide tuned in to watch its celebrity boxing showcase bout between YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul and the sport's legend Mike Tyson.
The fight, a bland eight-round affair that saw the 27-year-old Paul beat the 58-year-old Tyson by unanimous decision, peaked at 65 million concurrent streams.
Netflix added that the co-main event, a thrilling championship bout between undisputed female world super lightweight champion Ireland’s Katie Taylor and Puerto Rico’s Amanda Serrano, was watched by almost 50 million households.
The streaming service called that fight, a narrow and controversial points victory for the legendary Taylor, “likely to be the most watched professional women's sporting event in US history.”
Paul vs. Tyson was also distributed to over 6,000 bars and restaurants nationwide in the US by firm Joe Hand Promotions, which it says was its largest-ever combat sports event distribution.
A preliminary card of three fights was streamed on YouTube while the main four-fight card, which also included a split-decision WBC welterweight title defense by Mario Barrios over Abel Ramos, was exclusive to Netflix.
In addition to the mass viewership, the event generated over $18 million in gate receipts in the seven-fight show at Arlington, Texas’ AT&T Stadium, which drew 72,300 spectators.
In 2021, the AT&T Stadium broke the 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.
Though this fight drew a smaller attendance, its gate receipts were double the $9 million that fight drew, with the largest hospitality package for Paul vs. Tyson alone selling for $2 million.
This was the biggest gate receipt for a US boxing event held outside of Las Vegas, Nevada, though was some way off the most lucrative fight ever, which was the $72.1 million gate receipt notched by the Floyd Mayweather vs Manny Pacquiao fight in 2015, which was drawn off of only 16,219 tickets.
The involvement of Tyson, who is more than twice Paul’s age and has been plagued by health problems in recent years, drew pre-fight condemnation, and the fight itself saw little action and was widely panned by viewers, though it did not deter people from watching.
Also panned was Netflix’s viewing experience, which was dogged by technical issues such as buffering and generally poor screen quality.
Over 90,000 Netflix users reportedly had viewing issues during the fight.
This does not bode well for Netflix’s next major sports endeavor, an exclusive deal with American football’s NFL to air Christmas Day games for the next three seasons.
The agreement will begin this year when Netflix will show two games – Kansas City Chiefs vs Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens vs Houston Texans.
The platform will also show WWE’s weekly WWE Raw show, which it secured long-term global rights to earlier in 2024 and will begin broadcasting on January 6, 2025.
WWE is a consistent viewership draw in the US, with the promotion stating that Monday Night Raw draws 17.5 million unique viewers over a year on its current network the USA Network.
The addition of international viewership to this means that Netflix will have a major task on its hands to satisfy WWE’s rabid fanbase with the requisite viewing quality once a week.
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.
The streaming heavyweight 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.
