Boxing fans experienced a system outage on Netflix while streaming the Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul fight on Saturday morning. The streaming giant’s live combat sports debut experienced various issues, ranging from buffering to a complete crash of the service, leaving fans struggling to watch the bouts.
According to Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating statuses from various sources, the number of Netflix users who reported issues was 85,021 as of 3:35 a.m. GMT.
The platform reported that the system outage affected viewers in different regions. Users in New York, Los Angeles and Seattle were particularly affected. Netflix has yet to acknowledge any issues with its social media platforms or website.
This is not the first time that the platform has experienced an outage during a live or highly anticipated event. A surge in user traffic is often the culprit. In April 2023, Netflix experienced a brief outage during a live stream of the dating reality show “Love is Blind.” This caused traffic issues and various outages, leading to complaints from thousands of users.
Trends in Customer Subscriptions
After users had a rough experience with the highly anticipated Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul fight, time will tell how this will impact subscriber growth/decrease. Although Netflix beat growth forecasts for Q3 2024, it fell short of the 8.8 million subscribers it added in the same period last year.
“The sharp decline in net new subscribers is concerning. Globally there is still room for net subscriber growth, but in the U.S. the space is exhausted,” said Forrester analyst Mike Proulx.
In the third quarter of 2024, Netflix gained 5.1 million new subscribers. The movie streaming company beat Wall Street’s forecast of 4 million subscribers for the same period.
Shows that topped the movie streaming platform’s charts during the period included “Murder Mystery,” “Perfect Couple” and “Nobody Wants This.” The company said it expects a surge in customers when the Korean drama “Squid Game” is rebroadcast in December.
Revenue for the quarter was $5.40 per share. This is above analysts’ expectations of $5.12. It also represents a 22% increase compared to last year (Q3 2023). The company also reported that its operating margin was 30% and revenue increased to $9.825 billion, slightly above the expected $9.769 billion.
“We’re really happy with the business,” co-CEO Ted Sarandos said in the video. “We had a plan to get the business back on track, and we’ve executed on that plan.”
The company also predicted a strong increase in subscribers in the final quarter of the year. This quarter, Netflix will release season 2 of the popular Korean drama series “Squid Game” in late December.
