Netflix has announced that 108 million people worldwide streamed last Friday’s fight between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul, calling it the “most-streamed global sporting event ever.”
Despite issues with the live stream, Netflix initially claimed 60 million of its member households watched the bout. The 108 million figure combines U.S. data from analytics company TVision and Netflix’s internal metrics, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Netflix announced that the fight between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano was the “most-watched professional women’s sports event in U.S. history,” with 74 million viewers worldwide.
However, the stream faced widespread buffering issues and outages, sparking complaints on social media and criticism from figures like Howard Stern and Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, as reported by the New York Post.
Netflix is already facing a class-action lawsuit over the streaming issues, filed by Ronald “Blue” Denton in Florida on Monday, according to TMZ.
Legal documents, shared by Daniel Wallach on X, part of which highlighted widespread dissatisfaction, stated, “Of the over 100,000 people complaining online, Netflix appears to be the only one that described this fight night as ‘brilliant.”
Denton alleged in his lawsuit that he and others experienced “legendary problems” with Netflix’s stream starting at 8 p.m. on Friday, according to TMZ.
While Netflix CTO Elizabeth Stone acknowledged the issues in a company memo, she maintained that the event was still “a huge success.”
