Netflix peaked with “65 million simultaneous streams” during the boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul last night, according to Most Valuable Promotions, the fight promoter. Those broadcasts reached 60 million homes around the world, the group said in a news release shared with The edge via email. That's more than double the traffic Netflix could watch the NFL broadcast on Christmas Day this year, if everyone who seen last year he transmitted it.
The crowd of people trying to watch Tyson vs. Paul seemed to be more than Netflix's servers could easily handle, as the social network was inundated with complaints about streaming qualitywhich many found muddy or plagued by buffering and dropped connections. Downdetector recorded more than 100,000 complaints about Netflix streaming issues during the event. according Bloomberg.
Netflix Chief technology Officer Elizabeth Stone told employees that the company dealt with this “unprecedented scale” by prioritizing keeping streaming stable “for the majority of viewers,” according to BloombergIt's Mark Gurman.
“We don't want to discount the bad experience of some members and we know we have room for improvement, but we still consider this event a great success,” Stone wrote.
Update November 16: Added Disney Plus Hotstar streaming numbers for additional context.
