Netflix executives have lengthy said that the streaming big wasn’t going to get entangled within the ever-expanding enterprise of stay sports activities rights, but it surely’s doable that perspective is altering after the huge success of the latest Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson card.
With the corporate touting over 108 million viewers for the printed, Netflix subsequent dips its toe into the sports activities waters with a pair of NFL video games on Christmas Day earlier than welcoming the WWE in early 2025 after touchdown a $5 billion deal over 10 years for the promotion’s flagship sequence Monday Night time Uncooked.
It’s solely doable that Netflix’s subsequent main bounce into stay sports activities might come subsequent yr when potential suitors begin bidding for the UFC’s broadcast rights. UFC CEO Dana White didn’t low cost that chance even when he believes Netflix made a mistake by not getting concerned in stay sports activities a lot sooner, particularly after what simply occurred with the Paul vs. Tyson battle.
“I all the time believed it,” White mentioned about Netflix when chatting with the Sports activities Enterprise Journal “I all the time thought that Netflix was loopy to not get into stay sports activities before they did. These guys really have a worldwide footprint. I believe they’re late to the sport. It was a giant success.”
If there was one main grievance in regards to the Netflix broadcast for Paul vs. Tyson, it was the streaming difficulty that many viewers had with 65 million concurrent streams bombarding servers to look at the primary occasion this previous Saturday night time. That resulted in some viewers complaining that they couldn’t even get the occasion to load correctly whereas others have been coping with fixed freezing and lackluster image high quality all through the printed.
For his half, White says he didn’t truly expertise these issues, however he believes Netflix used Paul vs. Tyson as a solution to study extra about stay streaming earlier than the NFL lands there in December.
“I truly thought it was sensible of them to [do this fight],” White defined. “I didn’t assume the occasion was an amazing occasion, however they wanted to do this. They knew Mike Tyson was going to herald huge numbers. Mike Tyson was going to tug a giant quantity and this was a superb take a look at for them earlier than they begin airing the NFL. They’re saying it was over 65 million folks tuning in on the identical time.
“I used to be in a resort room in New York, and I didn’t have a foul expertise. It was somewhat grainy right here and there, however I didn’t have a horrible expertise. I’ve seen another folks say they did, however I didn’t.”
Whereas conversations about Netflix probably moving into enterprise with UFC received’t even have an opportunity to start out till subsequent yr, White isn’t ruling out the potential of working with anyone as soon as negotiations start.
He praised the connection UFC has constructed with ESPN and Disney since inking a deal to maneuver the entire promotion’s programming there in 2018, however White is aware of there are going to be loads of networks hoping to get into enterprise with the MMA superpower within the close to future.
“We’re the largest pay-per-view supplier on the planet,” White mentioned. “I believe we’re going to do very effectively going into this subsequent deal.
“I believe as we go into our negotiations in 2025, this factor might play out in plenty of alternative ways. Clearly we may very well be with Disney and ESPN for nevertheless a few years or you could possibly see all our content material get chopped up like WWE and NFL does and totally different merchandise going to totally different networks. I don’t know the way that’s going to play out as we get nearer to moving into these negotiations, however it’s a chance.”
