NFL fans fear that the poor broadcasting of Tyson vs. Paul on Netflix signals it won't be able to handle American football games.

The live broadcast of the fight between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul on Netflix turned out to be a complete chaos. Not only was there discussion about the quality of the fight itself, which generated differing opinions among viewers, but the most prominent issue was the live streaming, which many pointed out as problematic due to constant buffering and instability, making the viewing experience nearly impossible.

This does not bode well for Netflix's aspirations in the live sports arena, especially with NFL games scheduled for Christmas Day. Like many others, I experienced connection issues when I logged on a few minutes before Paul appeared in the back of a truck. To follow the eight rounds of the fight, I had to rely on my mind to form a coherent picture from the sparse visual information available. Social media posts reflected what I was seeing, showing that this was not an isolated problem.

Netflix did not provide comments immediately following the complaints and has not revealed how many people tuned into the fight, although it was available to its 283 million subscribers. Fans, like those who expressed themselves on social media, fear that the quality issues experienced last night could negatively impact upcoming broadcasts of WWE Raw, which attracts 1.4 million viewers each week, as well as NFL games scheduled to air on Christmas Day. This latter event will feature the Kansas City Chiefs, Super Bowl winners, who garnered nearly 30 million viewers last Christmas and have surpassed NFL broadcast ratings in this season.

The question arises as to whether Netflix will be able to execute its NFL broadcasts in December with the same effectiveness that Peacock had with the Super Bowl this year, or if the situation will be similar to YouTube's NFL Sunday Ticket broadcast last December. Given what happened the previous night, it seems that the company has issues to resolve.