Beyoncé’s halftime performance was the highlight of a lackluster NFL Christmas list

Beyoncé’s halftime performance was the highlight of a lackluster NFL Christmas list

Beyoncé provided more excitement than in either game Netflix’s NFL debut on Christmas day.

She rode into her halftime performance on a white horse 32-time Grammy winner wowed the audience in her hometown of Houston on Wednesday with a nearly 13-minute performance.

She surprised her fans by bringing Shaboozey to perform “Sweet Honey Buckiin'” and Post Malone joined her on “Levii’s Jeans.”

Beyoncé and Blue Ivy
Beyonce and Blue Ivy perform during the halftime show for the game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium on December 25, 2024 in Houston, Texas.

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The action on the field was not what was expected as the NFL featured four of the AFC’s top five teams.

Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce exposed a flaw in Pittsburgh’s defense during Kansas City’s 29-10 loss in Game 1.

The broadcast itself went extremely well and quickly became the second most popular live title on Netflix to date, according to NFL Media.

Lamar Jackson and the Ravens led CJ Stroud and the Texans 17-2 at halftime before Beyoncé stole the show. Baltimore closed out the 31-2 victory by resting Jackson for most of the fourth quarter.

Mariah Carey opened the football doubleheader with a taped performance of “All I Want for Christmas is You,” and then the two-time defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs beat the Steelers to secure the No. 1 seed in the AFC.

There were no signs of major streaming issues during the game after Netflix made minor errors early in the pregame show. The broadcast began with about 10 seconds of silence as it appeared studio host Kay Adams’ microphone was not turned on.

Beyoncé’s live performance at NRG Stadium was supposed to be the biggest test for the streaming giant and seemed to go off without a hitch.

Beyonce
Beyonce performs during the halftime show of the game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium on December 25, 2024 in Houston, Texas.

Getty Images


Mahomes threw for 320 yards and three touchdowns and Kelce had eight catches for 84 yards and a score, helping the Chiefs (15-1) earn a first-round bye and home-field advantage in the AFC playoffs. The Steelers (10-6) have lost three straight games and may have to settle for a wild-card spot.

Jackson threw two touchdown passes and ran for a score, and Derrick Henry had 147 yards rushing and a touchdown to help the Ravens (11-5) move into first place in the AFC North, one game ahead of Pittsburgh.

Netflix agreed to a three-year deal to broadcast Christmas games in May. The NFL is expected to give the streaming service one of its biggest days since the site launched in 1998.

Netflix’s 282.3 million subscribers in more than 190 countries were able to stream the games, marking the first time a broadcaster had distributed an NFL game worldwide. Netflix offered the games in five languages ​​– English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and German.

Netflix had problems Streaming the fight between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul on November 14th. The fight peaked at 65 million concurrent streams, including 38 million concurrent streams in the United States. According to the website Down Detector, nearly 85,000 viewers reported issues with outages or streaming leading up to and during the fight.

According to NFL Media, viewers in all 50 states tuned in within minutes of the pregame show going live, and viewers from nearly 200 countries watched the first game. Before the Ravens-Texans kicked off, Netflix reported that the series had surpassed the highest number of concurrent viewers on Christmas in the last four years.

The NFL played its first games on a Wednesday since the Steelers and Ravens were forced to play on December 2, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The only time the league played on a Wednesday since 1948 was in 2012, when the Giants and Cowboys met in the season opener.

The NFL played its first games on Christmas Day 1971 with two divisional playoff games. The league refrained from playing on December 25th from 1972 to 1988, moving the entire schedule to Saturday when Christmas fell on a Sunday. Since 1989 there have been 30 games on Christmas, never more than three on that day. But the NFL went out of its way to schedule two games Wednesday to honor its $150 million deal with Netflix.

This wasn’t the first time NFL games were broadcast exclusively on a streaming service. The league’s Thursday night games are in their third season on Amazon Prime Video, Peacock streamed the Packers-Eagles game in São Paulo, Brazil in Week 1 and Prime Video will stream a Wild Card game. Additionally, the Sunday Ticket package moved to YouTube TV last year.

The largest audience for an exclusively streamed NFL game was 23 million on Peacock for last season’s AFC Wild Card game between the Miami Dolphins and Chiefs.

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