Netflix has asserted the Mike Tyson versus Jake Paul boxing match was the “most-streamed global sporting event ever”.
The live-streamed match brought in an average of 108 million viewers and 65 million concurrent streams, according to The Verge, which cited TVision data in the US and first-party data in global markets.
This was despite widespread issues with video quality as well as buffering.
Out of the 65 million simultaneous streams, 38 million came from households in the US and it accounted for 56% of TV watching between midnight and 1 am that day in the US.
Despite assertions to being the most streamed sporting event ever (which seen from this perch appear more hyperbole than fact), it falls well behind some other huge global sports telecasts, with the NFL claiming the Super Bowl LVIII in February had a global audience of around 186 million people (123.7 million from the US), and FIFA claiming a global audience of more than 1 billion for the 2022 men’s World Cup final between Argentina and France, according to The Hollywood reporter.
Though concerns do exist whether Netflix can handle the huge number of viewers tuning in for future live events due to the aforementioned glitches, the streaming service will start airing WWE’s Monday Night Raw next year as well as two live NFL games on Christmas.
