If omens are anything to go by, Netflix appeared to be in for a very long day on Wednesday. When the streaming giant launched its NFL pregame show before airing the Kansas City Chiefs’ 29-10 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, viewers were welcomed into the broadcast… with immediate audio problems.

Viewers couldn’t hear studio host Kay Adams’ voice during her intro for the first 20 seconds or so of the show. Then, about nine minutes later, as studio analyst Mina Kimes was providing an interesting analysis of Kansas City’s offensive challenge, she was inexplicably interrupted by a promo for Squid Game 2. (Squid Game’s frontman wouldn’t like such inefficiency.)

That was the story at 11:11 a.m. ET, and it wasn’t a good one.

After that, however, things mostly got better. I was contacted by a number of people in the sports industry who were struggling with buffering issues in the fourth quarter. NFL viewers didn’t want much for Christmas, but they needed one thing. They didn’t care about presents under the Christmas tree or even just an amazing pre-game show. But they needed Netflix to solve the major buffering and freezing issues that plagued the streamer last month during the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul-led boxing event.

(Sorry for the tortured Mariah Carey reference.) You’ve mostly solved it –The athlete will update how the Ravens-Texans and Beyonce’s performance went.

The big picture, of course, is the burgeoning relationship between the NFL and Netflix. The streaming giant and the NFL announced a three-season deal in May to air Christmas Day games in 2024, 2025 and 2026. This deal gets even bigger as Netflix recently secured exclusive broadcast rights in the United States for the 2027 and 2031 editions of the Women’s World Cup.

These are important signals to the market that Netflix is ​​moving from a focus on sports properties to a legitimate sports rights holder. This also applies to another of Netflix’s forays into live events – the company’s deal for exclusive rights to WWE Raw, the long-running weekly professional wrestling classic.

Netflix paid $150 million to broadcast Wednesday’s games. That’s a rounding error for a company that has 282.3 million subscribers in over 190 countries.

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Netflix’s Jake Paul-Mike Tyson streaming issues raise Christmas worries for NFL

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday in an article about Netflix’s avoidance of Christmas Day disruption that Netflix failed to adequately prepare its own content delivery systems or its ISP partners for the surge in traffic for the Tyson Paul card . The Journal reported Netflix’s initial internal estimates that the soccer games could attract up to 35 million simultaneous streams worldwide. Last year’s Chiefs-Raiders broadcast averaged 29.2 million viewers on CBS and Nickelodeon, the highest NFL Christmas total since 1989.

A key difference between the Paul Tyson event and Netflix’s NFL Christmas production was the outsourcing of production: CBS handled the game broadcast, while NFL Media handled the pregame, halftime and postgame shows. That meant a rare mix of NFL staffers from CBS, ESPN, NBC, NFL Network and Fox.

It was a highly coveted gig, like being an NFL television celebrity – think of the long-term potential of a professional relationship with Netflix. Several talent agents, who were granted anonymity to speak freely, recounted The athlete that Netflix paid talent between high five figures and low six figures depending on the role (with gaming talent being paid in the higher range).

This is why every sports broadcaster wants a relationship with Netflix.

As for the quality of the audition content, it was what you would expect from groups working together for the first time – misses and minor hits. Drew Brees, who has a desire to return to broadcasting, was part of the pregame show and also the international broadcast. It will be interesting to see if this leads to more work. The chemistry between Laura Rutledge, Jason McCourty and Devin McCourty was great. The advertising burden for viewers was high.

One thing Netflix did right was use established networks to broadcast the game. Seen in the Chiefs-Steelers booth were Ian Eagle, Nate Burleson and JJ Watt, as well as sideline reporters Stacey Dales and Melanie Collins. It was what you would expect – professional and informative.

Watt wisely admitted above that he called his brother’s play (Steelers lineman TJ Watt) and what that meant (don’t hide the obvious). There were some gameplay problems at the beginning. The audio of the national anthem was malfunctioning and the Steelers strangely started the game with two graphic timeouts instead of three (this has been fixed).

The fourth quarter’s content will understandably frustrate those viewers accustomed to wireless and cable issues outside of local broadband outages.

“Netflix is ​​still in the discovery phase,” said Ed Desser, president of Desser Sports Media Inc. and the NBA’s senior media executive for 23 years The athlete earlier this month. “This is an R&D activity for them that they will learn from.”

It wasn’t anywhere near the best NFL presentation, but the stream held up for the most part. This is a victory for Netflix and the NFL for now, but they still have a long way to go.

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(Photo: Aaron M. Sprecher / Getty Images)