Debunking Myths From Netflix’s Boxing Stream: Focus On The Facts

Facts matter, except apparently in the aftermath of Netflix’s boxing event. This was Netflix’s 8th 9th live event (open to correction), not their first. Everyone is an expert in CDN and can “fix” Netflix’s live streaming, even though they don’t know the problems. Multiple vendors claim their cloud/edge/P2P/”insert anything here” solution could have solved the problem when some vendors are in beta with zero deployments. Many people share and compare numbers that are completely made up but state them as fact.

Having a fruitful conversation on the topic is hard since many refuse to take the time to educate themselves on the real numbers of past events. The volume of inaccurate posts I’ve seen on LinkedIn wastes people’s time. Stop posting made-up numbers. Here are a few points I keep seeing that need to be corrected:

• FALSE: “It was Netflix’s first live event, so it will take them time to get it right.” This was Netflix’s 8th 9th live streaming event. (Love is Blind reunion, Netflix Cup, Chris Rock Special, 30th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, UDUM 2023, The Netflix Slam, Tom Brady Roast, Joe Rogan Special)
• FALSE: “The NFL games on Christmas will need capacity for 100+/110M concurrent streams”. The Las Vegas Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs drew an average audience of more than 29 million viewers on CBS — which made it the most-watched Christmas Day game in 34 years. Even with Beyonce as the halftime show, Netflix is not getting 110M concurrent streams.
• UNKNOWN: “Only 0.1%/0.15%/1%/5% of the audience had a bad stream.” No one knows the percentage of overall users that had bad QoS, and people are pushing out numbers with ZERO sources, public or private. Using reports from downdetector is NOT a valid source!!!
• FALSE: “Netflix spent ~$50M on the event.” Based on what the fighters said, the purse alone was more than $80M combined. Add marketing and production costs, and Netflix spent well over $100M to produce the event. I don’t know if they shared in the revenue from the venue ticket sales, and I have found no source of Netflix commenting on the topic. I also don’t know what Netflix made on sponsorships.
• FALSE: “Akamai had major problems delivering the videos.” Netflix used its Open Connect infrastructure exclusively, and no third-party CDN was used. Some said, “If Netflix relied exclusively on its Open Connect CDN…” Why is anyone guessing? Do some traceroutes and talk to the vendors. All third-party CDNs were very open when asked and said they had no involvement in delivering the stream.
• FALSE: “Netflix supplemented its own CDN with vendor CDNs for all their overflow traffic.” See above.
• FALSE: “Netflix failed to test its capacity load properly.” You can’t simulate 65M concurrent streams in any real-world testing environment. Many want to point to “capacity” with ISPs, which I know, in many cases, was NOT the problem, as the ISPs told me.
• FALSE: “The event can only be compared to the Super Bowl.” Super Bowl streaming viewership peaked at 8.5M last year; on TV, it peaked at 126.3M in 2017, and none of those 126M viewers had QoS issues.
• FALSE: “Netflix has 8,000+ servers.” According to the last number they released, Netflix has close to 20,000 servers deployed across 175+ countries. In 2023, a half-rack of eight servers could deliver 200,000 concurrent streams. (Netflix did not say if that was VOD or live streams)
• UNKNOWN: “Estimates put sign-ups from this event at 10% / Netflix signed up millions of new users.” Based on what source? 10% of what number?

For those making up numbers and publishing them without sources, and you have the title of “Research Director” or “Analyst,” shame on you. Playing fast and loose with numbers is not acceptable. All my numbers in the post are sourced from public blog posts and/or press releases from Netflix, CBS, and Paramount.