Move over, Santa Claus: Beyoncé will be making an appearance in homes this Christmas as part of Netflix’s latest foray into the world of live sports.
The streaming giant announced that Queen Bey would perform during halftime of an NFL Christmas Day matchup between the Baltimore Ravens and the Houston Texans in her hometown of Houston.
The announcement comes two days after Netflix’s livestream of a boxing event featuring a headline bout between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul, which was riddled with technical difficulties.
Experts say as streaming companies continue to delve into the world of live sporting events, figuring out a way to successfully broadcast them will be key to growing their subscriber base.
Technical struggles a ‘lack of foresight’
According to the website Downdetector, nearly 85,000 viewers logged problems with outages or streaming leading up to the main fight. Many users took to social media to vent their frustrations.
Netflix having nothing but technical issues tonight. Mics not working, hosts can’t hear each other, and now the stream is stuck buffering
—@1HouseOfOBrien
The struggles were likely due to a “lack of foresight” on Netflix’s part, according to Michael Naraine, an associate professor of sport management at Brock University.
Naraine said that Netflix knows the number of users who will tune in to the release of a show like Stranger Things, through user behaviour and data collection, and can prepare accordingly. But since Netflix’s engagement with live events is relatively recent, the company “didn’t necessarily anticipate that 60 million people were going to watch.”
