About 2½ years ago, in Costa Rica, YouTube star turned professional boxer Jake Paul had a vision.
Paul claims that, during an ayahuasca ceremony, he saw himself fighting former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, with millions of children watching the fight on their televisions and devices.
On Friday, that dream will come true in the first professional boxing match broadcast live on Netflix. The fight is by far the Los Gatos, California-based streaming giant’s biggest sporting event and will likely be its highest-profile livestreaming effort to date.
It’s a major milestone in Netflix’s efforts to expand its live programming as it tries to boost its growing advertising business. Netflix — best known for shows like “Bridgerton” and “Stranger Things” — recently said its cheapest, ad-supported tier reached 70 million monthly active users, up from 40 million in May. Live events are crucial to attracting millions of viewers at once, which is what advertisers want.
Analysts will be closely monitoring how many of Netflix’s 283 million subscribers around the world tune in to the Paul-Tyson fight, which pits the 27-year-old content creator against the tough 58-year-old boxer. Big boxing matches tend to be broadcast more exclusively, often through pay-per-view or sports streaming services.
“With Netflix, a big part of our appeal is the distribution and reach we have globally,” said Brandon Riegg, vice president of nonfiction series and sports at Netflix. “It’s an incredible opportunity where everyone can tune in at exactly the same time and have exactly the same experience, watching exactly the same fight collectively.”
Netflix began streaming live events last year. The initiative began with “Chris Rock: Selective Outrage,” Rock’s first live comedy special after being slapped by actor Will Smith at the 2022 Oscars ceremony. Rock’s special has received more than 23 million views to date.
The streamer has hosted multiple live shows since then, including exhibition tennis and golf matches, a comedy roast of Tom Brady, a hot dog eating contest, and the SAG Awards. On Christmas Day, Netflix will broadcast two NFL football games.
The fight between Paul and Tyson, which will take place at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, is a partnership between Netflix and Most Valuable Promotions, a company of which Paul is a co-founder. There will be four bouts on the undercard starting at 2:30 p.m. and another four bouts on the main card starting at 5:00 p.m., with Paul vs. Tyson as the finale.
The event was initially scheduled for July 20, but was postponed to November 15 after Tyson suffered an ulcer flare-up.
Nakisa Badarian Bidarian, co-founder of Most Valuable Promotions, said the hope is that tens of millions of people will tune in to Netflix to watch the fight. Bidarian expects in-person ticket sales to generate more than $16 million.
“There’s going to be a massive audience that’s going to see our brand…Jake’s and my brand at this once-in-a-lifetime event, and that’s going to create great brand equity for us in the future,” Bidarian said.
The idea of Paul wrestling live on Netflix came about after he worked with the streamer on a documentary about his life. That film, “Untold: Jake Paul, the Problem Child,” was among Netflix’s top 10 most-watched movies in 20 countries for one to two weeks in 2023, according to the streaming service’s data.
Of the potential opponents being considered for Paul, Netflix was most interested in Tyson, a big name who could appeal to lifelong boxing fans and viewers outside of the sport.
Paul, who grew up in Ohio, originally became famous on YouTube for his disruptive antics. He became a professional boxer in 2020 and has since knocked out rivals such as former basketball player Nate Robinson. The fight with Tyson could significantly raise his profile.
“It’s within me to be a fighter, to be a disruptor, to be someone who will do what no one else will do,” Paul says in “Countdown: Paul vs. Tyson.” “You can achieve anything you set your mind to with self-belief, hard work, and a little delusional optimism.”
Tyson, meanwhile, is one of the sport’s all-time greats, becoming the youngest heavyweight champion at age 20. He chained 37 consecutive victories, 33 of them by KO. He has also appeared in films such as “The Hangover” and “Ip Man 3.”
Sports have been attractive to streaming services, and tech companies have spent heavily to get them because of their appeal to audiences and advertisers. Amazon Prime Video is the home of the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football” and Apple has the MLB’s “Friday Night Baseball” games. Amazon also recently reached a deal to stream a package of NBA games.
“When there’s constantly new content, it helps them reduce churn,” says Jeffrey Wlodarczak, CEO of Pivotal Research Group. “They try to have content for different demos.”
Buying sports rights can be incredibly expensive, and some analysts are skeptical about the possibility of re-watching certain games. Netflix executives have insisted that when choosing sports programming, it has to make financial sense for the company.
After all, there is precedent for using boxing to attract subscribers. Fight broadcasting helped fuel the growth of HBO, which used the sport’s appeal to expose viewers to its shows and movies.
“The logical fit between boxing and HBO can certainly be applied to Netflix,” says Brett Sappington, principal analyst at consulting agency Sappington Media. “I can certainly see the parallels.”
