With two much anticipated NFL games and a big assist from Beyoncé, Netflix created a major cultural moment for the streaming industry, marking a significant milestone as the service pushes further into live sports. But the events couldn’t top the ratings for last year’s games on broadcast television.
Netflix on Thursday said its two Christmas Day NFL games — Kansas City Chiefs vs. Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens vs. Houston Texans — each brought tens of millions of viewers to the Los Gatos, Calif.-based streaming service.
The Ravens-Texans game drew an average of 24.3 million U.S. viewers Wednesday, while the earlier Chiefs-Steelers matchup brought in 24.1 million, according to Nielsen data released by Netflix. Viewership peaked with 27 million viewers during the Ravens-Texans game with Beyoncé’s halftime performance, the company said. Worldwide streaming numbers will be released in the coming days.
The strong numbers come after Netflix’s boxing match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson attracted huge viewership to the platform, despite being plagued by buffering and other technical issues for many users. That bout, Netflix’s first professional live sports event, drew 65 million households streaming concurrently and 108 million global viewers, the company said.
Netflix’s numbers are a sign of the potential for streaming as a vehicle for sports broadcasting. But the ratings didn’t top those for traditional TV. Last year’s most-watched Christmas Day game averaged 29.2 million viewers for CBS, according to Nielsen data.
The data for Wednesday’s games included CBS local market viewing and mobile viewing on NFL+, in addition to traffic to Netflix, the company said.
NFL fans are used to turning on the the old-school broadcasters for their football showdowns, despite the growing popularity of streaming for on-demand and live programming.
Netflix’s NFL games were widely seen as a key moment for the streaming industry, pairing the most popular sport in America with the biggest global subscription streaming platform. Streaming services have been swallowing up the rights to sports leagues, with Amazon securing Thursday Night Football and upcoming NBA games, while Apple has Major League Baseball on Friday nights as well as Major League Soccer games.
“Amazon and YouTube and Apple and now Netflix, they’re all totally in the mix,” said Paul Verna, vice president of content at market research firm Emarketer. Netflix’s NFL Christmas Day broadcast is “them throwing their hat into the ring for live sports in a big way.”
The entry of the tech titans has also raised the price of sports rights. Traditional TV networks often are willing to pay big bucks to keep live games, one of the few things that can still get a huge number of people to tune in at a specific time.
Netflix reportedly paid $150 million for its first two NFL games. The service will also carry at least one NFL Christmas game in 2025 and 2026 as part of a three-year agreement with the league.
CBS Sports produced the games, with NFL Media producing the pre-, post-, and studio halftime programming.
“Bringing our members this record-breaking day of two NFL games was the best Christmas gift we could have delivered,” Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s chief content officer, said in a statement.
Compared with some of its prominent streaming rivals, Netflix had been slower to dive into sports.
Prior to the Paul vs. Tyson fight, Netflix’s efforts in live sports included events such as exhibition golf and tennis tournaments, as well as sports documentaries. Last week, Netflix signaled further ambitions by signing a deal to stream the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2027 and 2031. The company has been gradually upping its game in the space because of the appeal for viewers and, crucially, advertisers, which Netflix is attempting to court.
“The other companies have started small and built up from there, and I see Netflix going in exactly the same direction,” Verna said.
Neither of the Christmas games were very close. In the first game of the day, Kansas City defeated Pittsburgh 29-10. Baltimore routed Houston 31-2.
From a technical perspective, the NFL games on Netflix were a far smoother viewing experience for those tuning in, compared with the Paul vs. Tyson match, during which the company’s service was overwhelmed by demand. Those problems rose the stakes for Netflix, which worked to prepare for another big influx of viewers.
The streaming giant has about 283 million subscribers worldwide, with nearly 85 million in the U.S. and Canada.
It did its best to Netflix-ify the telecasts, peppering commercial breaks with promos for its upcoming shows and movies (including “Squid Game” Season 2, which debuted Thursday, the second season of “The Night Agent” and “Back in Action,” starring Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz).
The telecast also featured appearances from comedians Bert Kreischer and Nate Bargatze, who have appeared on Netflix. Bargatze’s latest standup special just debuted on the service.
But by far, the biggest nonathletic draw to the event was Beyoncé’s halftime performance during the Ravens-Texans contest in Houston, the singer’s hometown. The artist showcased her latest album, the countrified “Cowboy Carter” celebrating her Southern roots, ahead of February’s Grammy Awards, at which she’s competing for album of the year.
Times music critic Mikael Wood called the performance “a thrill from top to bottom.” “For all its cross-promotional synergy,” her “halftime show was a reminder that whatever lures Beyoncé from her superstar cocoon is worth celebrating,” Wood wrote.
Regular season NFL games typically don’t have a halftime show — a spectacle reserved for big games such as the Super Bowl. But the decision to add Beyoncé into the mix was a savvy move, Verna said.
“It definitely had much more media interest and attention because everybody knew Beyoncé was going to perform,” he said. “Netflix was smart to latch onto these Christmas games and having the halftime show certainly couldn’t have hurt.”
