On the 16th, the professional boxing heavyweight match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson achieved record-breaking success. According to Netflix, 60 million households watched the match live, with simultaneous streams reaching up to 65 million. Previously, 50 million households watched the women’s lightweight title match between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano, which Netflix stated would go down as the most-watched women’s sports event in U.S. history.
The excitement at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, where the match was held, was palpable, with 72,300 spectators gathering. This set a record for the largest boxing audience in the U.S. outside Las Vegas.
However, many viewers expressed dissatisfaction with Netflix’s boasting of its viewership ratings. A post on the X account (formerly Twitter) announcing the viewership numbers sparked around 10,000 comments, most of which were negative. Complaints focused on severe buffering issues that made it difficult to watch the match properly.
The surge of simultaneous viewers likely overloaded Netflix’s streaming system. CNBC, citing Downdetector, a site that tracks online service outages, reported that around 95,000 access malfunction complaints were logged by 11 PM (Eastern Time) on the night of the match.