Netflix Will Revolutionize the Sports Industry
Edition #201
First off, let’s start with our monthly tradition.
16 more days until the NBA Cup Finals
30 more days until 2025
71 more days until the Super Bowl
77 more days until the NBA All-Star Game.
108 more days until MLB Opening Day.
186 more days until the NBA Finals
Yeah, sure. Many people saw error messages when they watched the Paul-Tyson fight on that Friday night on November 15th. According to Netflix, 60 million households tuned in to watch the game (including me), and the event was worldwide too.
This was the first time Netflix was managing a live sports event, and boy was that bad. Nearly 85,000 of the 60 million viewers had problems streaming the fight.
Want more problems? Viewers saw Tyson's butt when he walked away at the end of the prefight interview in his locker room. Netflix exposed everything.
But, I promise this. Netflix will revolutionize the sports industry.
If you were one of the people that got to watch the bout, you could see the quality of the coverage. They got people from all over to help them host the game. They had an immersive experience, especially with the signs, interviews, and previews.
It felt very new, which made it feel nice. It was also a smooth experience. While Netflix had a lot of backend issues, they delivered when people got to watch the game.
Making the screen clean is the motto.
The thing about Netflix is that, as of the third quarter of 2024, Netflix has over 282 million paid subscribers across more than 190 countries. Surprisingly, most of these people are in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and then come the U.S. and Canada. Asia Pacific is next, and Latin America is last.
Now, not all 282 million people would like sports, but according to a study taken by Siena College Research Institute and St. Bonaventure University, 70% of Americans identify as sports fans. Out of around 86 million paid subscribers in the US and Canada, 60.2 million people would like sports. Because of the timing and other matters on Christmas Day, we could take away around 10 million people. That would leave us with 50.2 million people, tuning in to the NFL games on Christmas Day from America and Canada. Don’t forget about the European NFL fans, adding 3 million more people, making it 53.2 million viewers.
That could shatter the record by 10 million!
If this can actually happen (which I believe it will), the NBA and MLB will be ready to explore streaming with Netflix, and that means they can rake in money. Revolutionizing the sports industry, and introducing sports to the power of streaming with some of the biggest platforms.
"Last year, we decided to take a big bet on live -- tapping into massive fandoms across comedy, reality TV, sports and more. There are no live annual events, sports or otherwise, that compare with the audiences NFL football attracts. We're so excited that the NFL's Christmas Day games will be only on Netflix."
Bela Bajaria, Netflix chief content officer.
"We couldn't be more excited to be the first professional sports league to partner with Netflix to bring live games to fans around the world. The NFL on Christmas has become a tradition and to partner with Netflix, a service whose biggest day of the year is typically this holiday, is the perfect combination to grow this event globally for NFL fans."
Hans Schroeder, NFL executive vice president of media distribution.
Before the Christmas Day games, Netflix has a bit of fixing to do:
Fix all the backend issues. If they do this (CRAZY FUNNY), then Netflix x Live Sports is over.
The fight between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson is being talked about to this day, and it’s so embarrassing for Netflix, for actually making it a commercial fight. The NFL is obviously different, and the matchups placed on Christmas Day are actually pretty fair. If the game is good, Netflix is good.
MY PREDICTED TIMELINE:
December 25th, 2024: Successful run of NFL live streaming.
July 22nd, 2024: NBA announces one Netflix EXCLUSIVE play-in game.
? Possibility of this?November 21st, 2024: MLB announces Netflix as an option to stream local team’s games. (I really don’t know about this one.)
Whatever the above may be (LOL), Netflix will take over a few games, every year, for each sport.
Netflix WILL Revolutionize the Sports Industry.
If the NBA’s new media deal weren’t already signed, I’d give a play-in/playoff or Christmas Day game to Netflix a decent chance. However, because of the new media deal being already signed, it would be a breach of contract to take away a Play-In game from Amazon or a playoff game from anyone else…eventually it will probably happen, should Netflix continue its dominance, but it won’t happen until at least 2035-36 if the media deal isn’t rewritten.