Boxing fans experienced a system outage on Netflix while streaming the match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul on Saturday morning. The streaming giant’s debut in live combat sports saw fans struggling to watch the match due to problems ranging from buffering to the service crashing completely.
According to Doendetector, which tracks outages by collating status from various sources, it highlighted that the number of Netflix users who indicated problems was 85,021 by 03:35 am (GMT).
The platform reported that the system outage affected viewers across different regions. It primarily impacted users in New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Netflix has yet to acknowledge the issues on its social media platforms or websites.
This isn’t the first time the platform has faced outages during live or highly anticipated events. with spikes in user traffic often being a contributing factor.
In April 2023, Netflix experienced a brief outage during a live stream of the dating reality show “Love is Blind”. This drew complaints from thousands of users after experiencing traffic issues and various outages.
Viewers’ Reactions
Viewers and boxing fans have taken to X (formerly Twitter) to express dissatisfaction following the disruption experienced.
A fan @Tone Digz said: “It’s all fun and games tonight @netflix, but it you ruin my family’s Christmas because we can’t watch the Steelers, there will be real hell to pay.”
Another added: “First time I’ve sat down to watch boxing on forever and Netflix keeps freezing up and buffering.”
Also, @WhoDyabala said: “If they doesn’t fix this buffering issue, this will go down as one of the biggest fails in all of tv/streaming history.”
Another said: “Netflix has crashed! We have been buffering at 25% for 10 minutes and are now frozen. It’s not my network. We are pushing 250 mbs.”
@Souljaboy reacted angrily: “Fix it now @netflix”
Will Netflix suffer a slip in subscribers?
Following the harsh experiences of users during the highly anticipated fight between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul, the future will tell about the effect on subscribers’ gain or loss.
Despite outperforming forecasted growth for the 2024 third quarter, Netflix stood below the 8.8 million subscribers it picked up in the year-ago quarter.
“A steep decline in net new subscribers is what’s concerning. While there’s room for net subscriber growth internationally, in the U.S. things are getting tapped out,” Forrester analyst Mike Proulx said.
For the third quarter of 2024, Netflix acquired 5.1 million new subscribers. The movie-streaming company surpassed Wall Street’s projected 4 million subscribers for the period.
Shows that headlined the performance table on the movie streaming platform during the period include The Murder Mystery, The Perfect Couple and Nobody Wants This. According to the company, customer growth is expected to skyrocket when the Korean Drama “Squid Game” returns in December.
“We’re feeling really good about the business,” Co-CEO Ted Sarandos said in a video. “We had a plan to re-accelerate the business, and we delivered on that plan.”
The company also forecasts significant subscriber growth in the last quarter of the year. During that quarter, Netflix will release the second season of the popular Korean drama series, Squid Game in late December.
Last month, Netflix pointed out that part of its plan to increase engagement and subscriber figures centered around live events including sports which can attract more advertisements. It announced that it will stream a fight between YouTube star Jake Paul and Mike Tyson. This will be followed by two National Football League games on Christmas Day.
Although Netflix reported subscriber gains in its ad-supported tier, it does not expect advertising to become a primary growth driver until 2026.
