Jake Paul-Mike Tyson Fight’s “Off-The-Charts” Viewer Appeal Outweighed Tech Issues, Co-CEO Ted Sarandos Says

deadline.com:

Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos described last month’s Jake Paul–Mike Tyson fight as a triumph despite the live event’s technical glitches. “We hate to disappoint a member for one second,” he said during an appearance at the UBS Media and Communications Conference in New York.

Even though many tuning in wound up frustrated by buffering and sound issues with the live stream, Sarandos said the “want-to-see was off the charts.” For employees at the company, “all that was left” in the aftermath was “imagination and what’s next.” While he didn’t dwell on the specific elements of the 5 1/2-hour livestream, Sarandos chuckled that it was “some combination of sports and circus,” capped by Paul’s decision over the 58-year-old Tyson.

He said he “heard a lot of great stories” about subscribers “going to a high school football game and everybody was watching the fight on their phone instead of watching the game.” Concerns have arisen since the fight about Netflix’s technical capabilities heading into a Christmas Day doubleheader of NFL games.

The audience for those games, even with a Beyoncé halftime show, is likely to be smaller than the 60 million households the company said watched the fight.