Beyoncé generated more excitement than the two games on display during the NFL’s debut on Netflix on Christmas Day.
Posted at 7:36 a.m.
Material Rob
Associated Press
Arriving at halftime on a white horse, the 32-time Grammy winner thrilled the crowd in her hometown of Houston with a nearly 13-minute performance Wednesday.
She surprised admirers by inviting singer and rapper Shaboozey to perform Sweet Honey Buckiin and Post Malone joined him for Levi’s Jeanshits from his recent album Cowboy Carter.
The action on the field didn’t live up to expectations, even though the NFL featured four of the top five teams in the American Football Conference (AFC).
Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce exposed a flaw in Pittsburgh’s defense in Kansas City’s 29-10 Game 1 win.
The broadcast itself did well, quickly becoming the second most popular live title on Netflix to date, according to NFL Media.
Lamar Jackson and the Ravens led CJ Stroud and the Texans 17-2 at halftime before Beyoncé stole the show. Baltimore completed a 31-2 victory with Jackson resting most of the fourth quarter.
Mariah Carey opened the doubleheader with a recorded rendition of All I Want for Christmas is Youthen the Chiefs, two-time defending Super Bowl champions, crushed the Steelers to clinch first place in the AFC.
There were no signs of major broadcast issues during the game after Netflix experienced minor errors at the start of the pregame show. The broadcast began with about 10 seconds of silence, as it appeared that studio host Kay Adams’ microphone was not on.
Beyoncé’s live performance at NRG Stadium was supposed to be the biggest test for the streaming giant and it appeared to go off without a hitch.
Netflix agreed to a three-year deal in May to broadcast Christmas Day matches. The NFL is expected to give the streaming service one of its biggest days since the site launched in 1998.
PHOTO MARIA LYSAKER, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Netflix’s 282.3 million subscribers in more than 190 countries were able to watch the games, marking the first time a single outlet has streamed an NFL game globally. Netflix offered the matches in five languages: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and German.
Netflix encountered issues streaming the Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul fight on November 14. The fight peaked at 65 million concurrent streams, including 38 million concurrent streams in the United States. According to the website Down Detector, nearly 85,000 viewers reported outages or streaming issues before and during the fight.
There were fewer complaints on Wednesday.
According to NFL Media, viewers in all 50 states watched the game within minutes of the pregame show airing, and viewers in nearly 200 countries watched the first game.
Before kickoff of the Ravens-Texans game, Netflix reported that it had surpassed the maximum number of concurrent viewers for any Christmas in the last four years.
This wasn’t the first time NFL games were broadcast exclusively on a streaming platform. The league’s Thursday night games are in their third season on Amazon Prime Video, Peacock broadcast the Packers-Eagles game in São Paulo, Brazil, and Prime Video will broadcast a wild-card game. Additionally, the “Sunday Ticket” package moved to YouTube TV last year.
