Netflix, Beyoncé, and the NFL

Netflix is on cloud nine. In 2024, the company pulled further away from Disney+, Max, and the pack of competing subscription video on demand (SVOD) services. The other streamers now sell their shows and movies to Netflix to reach a deeper audience. Netflix’s password-sharing crackdown and cheaper ad-supported tiers have resulted in net positive growth and revenue gain for the company. After a brief moment of slowdown post-pandemic, Netflix appears stronger than ever.

But Netflix also benefits from favorable analysis across the board. As of November 25, 2024, the company’s market cap is at $374 billion, nearly twice as high as Disney’s. The Netflix figure likely says more about Wall Street analysts’ generous P/E ratios than Netflix truly being worth double that of Disney, but that’s the game.

Netflix’s most recent splash was the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson boxing event. An event? Yes. A fight? Debatable. Netflix reported that the event drew 108 million viewers which makes it “the most streamed global sporting event ever.” Some have awkwardly compared that number to Muhammad Ali’s revered prize fights in the 1970s.

I believe, frankly, that that’s quite a stretch. Personally, it doesn’t even come close to the reach of Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao in 2015. I’ll take Mayweather-Pacquiao’s 4.6 million pay-per-view buys over Paul-Tyson’s 108 million worldwide viewers. A Netflix view may qualify if as little as ​two minutes​ of the broadcast was watched. The event was also available to nearly 300 million paid subscribers on Netflix’s monthly service, which costs less than $3 per month in certain regions of the world.

I have to be fair though, this is my personal take. Some may push back since pay-per-view buys don’t measure consumption. Technically, they would be correct. I may believe that a $100 pay-per-view buy to watch a live event implies even more consumption, and may even imply a watch party where multiple people attend. But again, that’s my bias. It’s a flawed comparison at best.

It would be like comparing Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department’s 1.76 billion streams in its first week to Adele’s 25 selling 3.38 million albums sold in its first week in the U.S. alone in 2015. The only thing those stats have in common is that both records were set in one week.

This brings us to Beyoncé. She will headline the halftime show for Netflix’s 2024 Christmas Day game for the Baltimore Ravens at the Houston Texans. In 2019, when Beyoncé’s Homecoming documentary was released on Netflix, it was rumored that it was part of a $60 million deal for three specials. The first special was the Coachella documentary, and the second might be this performance. If that’s the case, the hat tip to Cowboy Carter herself. While every other superstar artist performs at the Super Bowl and NFL games for free, Beyoncé continues to get paid tens of millions of dollars, whether it's from ​Pepsi​ or now Netflix.

Netflix's Christmas Day slate and halftime show are wise moves. The company turned two regular-season games into their own spectacle. It’s also smart for Netflix since the inevitable apples-to-oranges comparisons of the viewers for these games will likely be presented in a favorable way.

In the days after Christmas, expect to read reports that Netflix’s Christmas Day NFL games, especially the Ravens vs Texans game with Beyoncé, will become the new “most streamed global sporting event ever.” That number may even exceed the 2025 Super Bowl’s viewership numbers that will come from Nielsen.

Discerning eyes will know that Nielsen and Netflix views shouldn’t be compared without context, but most people won’t do that work. It may lead to lazy yet buzzworthy headlines that state or imply that Beyoncé’s Netflix game reached more people than either of her Super Bowl performances. This would be another situation where the truth is far less entertaining (and gets far fewer clicks and engagement) than a flawed comparison. The “well, actually…” fine print gets lost in the mix.

On a separate note, the NFL has officially taken Christmas Day away from the NBA. It’s a transition that deserves a case study for another day. The NFL has also been ​creeping up on MLK Day​, another historically big day for the NBA. Nothing is safe! President’s Day might not be too far away. To fight back, the NBA may need to hire Beyoncé itself and carve out its own special broadcast rights package with Netflix.