Jake Paul fighting Mike Tyson, the NFL on Christmas Day and a Super Bowl-level performance from Beyoncé proved to be great for Netflix’s business.
The streaming giant reported a record number of new subscriber signups in the final quarter of 2024 – nearly 19 million – pushing its total subscriber count above 300 million. (As of Wednesday morning, Netflix shares are rising.)
The company was quick to point to the success of its year-end sports programming, including the Paul-Tyson boxing match and the NFL double-header at Christmas, including a halftime show with Beyoncé that Netflix also ultimately packaged on its own. attract more viewers than the football matches.
Market research agency Antenna estimated that Netflix generated more than 650,000 new subscribers in the days surrounding the NFL games. According to Antennathe fight between Paul and Tyson generated more than 1.4 million subscription registrations.
The company laid out its sports programming strategy in its letter to shareholders released Tuesday:
“We do not focus on acquiring rights to major sports packages in the regular season. Rather, our live strategy is about delivering special event programming that you can’t miss,” the company said.
This positions Netflix as a kind of ‘anti-ESPN’.
By design and necessity, ESPN spends its rights budget on acquiring a large number of sports packages for the regular season. The network’s currency is live games, so it spends a lot on that programming. (This tonnage of live games will become even more important for ESPN when it launches its own direct-to-consumer sports platform later this year — currently codenamed “Flagship.”) Additionally, ESPN/ABC may have the most major events in history of sports media, including the upcoming Super Bowls, the NBA Finals, the College Football Championship and the Stanley Cup Final.
The luxury position in which Netflix finds itself is clearly evident from its acquisition strategy. It doesn’t need all live sports; it just needs enough “big, memorable” (in his own words) live sports to keep audiences engaged.
With a market cap north of $370 billion — and growing, if Wednesday’s share price jump from Tuesday’s quarterly report is any indication — along with its massive global audience, Netflix can pick and choose what it “can’t miss.” and probably surpass everyone on the market.
That’s a big reason why the Christmas Day football experiment was so important – both for Netflix and the NFL.
Netflix had to test whether fans would switch from traditional NFL broadcast platforms to stream games on Netflix, realizing that Amazon Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football had proven the concept.
Netflix went all out, hiring dozens of on-air personalities from other networks and, of course, paying Beyoncé for a halftime show that wouldn’t have been out of place during a Super Bowl. The reward included being the most-watched NFL game ever on a streaming platform.
Netflix has the rights to release games on Christmas Day again in 2025 – since December 25 is a Thursday, they’ll air on the same day as one of Amazon Prime Video’s games.
Of course, the NFL should be happy: They get a newcomer with deep pockets who can pay top dollar in rights fees, get the product in front of a global audience of a few hundred million people, and put on a broadcast that looks and feels the same as true fans are used to.
Netflix is a natural (top) bidder for a new package of NFL games, whether that’s a new “18th game,” an international package, or something brand new (like the NFL on Christmas Day, which used to be the province of the U.S. was). NBA).
Now low in WWE. Netflix poached WWE’s Monday night live show and launched weekly shows earlier this month. While that seems to fit the description of a “major regular season sports package” while claiming to be a sidestep, Monday night’s WWE roadshow feels more like a “special event” than “multiple matches per week.”
What qualifies as a sports-related ‘special event’? And also happens to be one of the few premium live sports packages currently available?
UFC Fights. Keep in mind that WWE and UFC share a parent company (TKO Holdings), so Netflix’s $10 billion investment in WWE could be a show of commitment regarding future deals involving UFC. ESPN exclusively owns the full rights through next year. UFC will consider splitting the packages among multiple carriers, according to sources briefed on the discussions The Athletics.
Netflix also made a big splash last month by acquiring the rights to broadcast the Women’s World Cup in 2027 and 2031. It shouldn’t surprise anyone if and when Netflix uses that as a step toward acquiring the Men’s World Cup next available. by 2030.
As evidenced by the Paul-Tyson fight and, earlier this year, the live roast of Tom Brady, Netflix’s live programming team does not lack the willingness to evaluate non-traditional ideas, the willingness to ventilate and the deepest of pockets to acquire them.
And in another interesting twist, Netflix’s presence in the sports world has shown that the leagues need the streamer more than Netflix needs them. This is 180 degrees different from traditional networks.
ESPN, Fox, NBC and CBS would probably survive if they lost the NFL, but they wouldn’t be dominant forces in sports entertainment culture. Netflix may have been helped by the NFL games, but if it hadn’t had those two Christmas games, it’s hard to believe its earnings report would have been drastically different given its steady production of shows like the second season of ‘Squid’ . Game” and films with A-listers.
The same goes for Amazon. The Prime Video service is the sports leader among digital players with its NFL and NBA deals. But if Amazon decided tomorrow — they won’t, because they have long-term agreements — to drop the sport, would they sell one less box of paper towels?
We are in the midst of a major re-bundling of the way we watch sports. The biggest long-term challengers to ESPN’s supremacy and to the top position of the traditional networks are Amazon and Netflix. While leagues like the NFL really want digital players to invest more in their games, there’s a long-term problem: Will Netflix focus more of its strategy on sports?
Whether Netflix gets UFC will be telling, and it’s hard to imagine the sport being anything other than a boon for Netflix’s relatively new level of advertising.
How this all plays out in the long term could impact not only the way you watch your matches, but also the financial makeup of sports.
(Photo by Joe Sargent/Getty Images)