Netflix says it’s taking steps to improve streaming capacity for Chiefs’ Christmas game
Netflix has yet to announce which broadcasters will call the Chiefs game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Christmas Day, but there is something that concerns fans more.
During last month’s Jake Paul-Mike Tyson boxing match, viewers reported a number of issues from buffering to washed-out screens. That had fans worried about the Chiefs’ game on Netflix.
“We always want our live events to go smoothly, and unfortunately at the peaks, some members who watched the Paul/Tyson fight ran into some issues,” Netflix said in a statement. “But we worked quickly to stabilize viewing for the majority of our members.”
“At its peak, the Paul vs Tyson fight reached 65 million concurrent streams, and overall it was a huge success for us. The unprecedented scale of the Paul vs Tyson fight would have created technical challenges for anyone.”
Netflix noted that fans watching the Chiefs’ 26-7 win over the Dolphins in an AFC Wild Card Game this past January on Peacock also reported issues with that streaming service.
That game on Peacock had 16.3 million streamers at its peak, said Netflix, which noted that’s nearly 50 million fewer viewers than the celebrity boxing match had at one point.
Netflix also pointed out that YouTube’s Sunday Ticket had troubles with a Steelers-Ravens game last year.
Netflix believes it learned from the issues it encountered last month. It is taking steps to improve its quality for the Chiefs-Steelers game and the Texans-Ravens contest that follows on Christmas.
That includes working with its partner internet service providers to increase Netflix’s “interconnection capacity,” and optimizing its system to handle a crush of demand.
“We do have the fundamental infrastructure capabilities that we need as we move forward,” Netflix told The Star. “We now know from experience what are the main pressure points in our infrastructure and are promptly addressing them ahead of the NFL games.
“Some behaviors of our live streaming systems are impossible to replicate in a lab environment and are only visible at huge scale with real viewers. We studied that in detail and are adjusting our content delivery, encoding, and streaming protocols accordingly.
“Operationally, we will continue leaning on issue remediation practices that worked well during the fight, and are adding new ones.”
Fans in Kansas City will be able to watch the Chiefs-Steelers game on a local television station, so they won’t need Netflix.
This story was originally published December 5, 2024 at 9:56 AM.
