Netflix’s Tyson-Paul Live Stream: What Actually Went Wrong?

Millions of Americans tuned in last Friday night to watch boxing legend Mike Tyson square off against Jake Paul on Netflix. It promised to be an exciting night for all, Netflix included – who was streaming a major live sporting event for the first time in its history. However, the big Tyson – Paul live stream was still hours away when the streaming troubles started, and they persisted throughout the match, turning Netflix’s proud first foray into the world of live sports into a meme-laden social media debacle and leading many to question whether they are ready to go down the live-to-VOD streaming road.

But while many are happy to tease the streaming giant for its poor performance, Netflix itself has been largely quiet on the subject. So, what really happened? How could such an innovative contributor to the streaming space flub a live event so spectacularly? And what can we expect from their projected football double header on Christmas Day?

 

Tyson – Paul Live Stream Viewership and Complaints

One thing Netflix isn’t quiet about are the record-breaking numbers it’s been boasting since fight night. 60 million households tuned in on Friday night, with a high of 65 million concurrent streams at one point. This serves as proof both that live events still hold their own allure in a VOD-heavy streaming culture and that people are willing to flock to streaming platforms like Netflix to get their fix. Whatever other issues they faced, Netflix’s gamble that people would want to watch was a smart one.

That said, this surge in viewership proved to be both a blessing and a curse. The popular outage reporting site downdetector.com stated that reports of issues with the stream started as early as 8pm local time, several hours before the main event. By 9pm, they had more than 80k reports. Based on these reports (and the incessant online jokes that followed), it seems many people experienced poor image quality at best and buffering and stream failure at worst.

It’s possible what surprised people the most and caused them to rake Netflix across the coals was the overarching expectation that a streaming veteran such as Netflix should have had no problem delivering a live video experience. After all, broadcast television does it all the time, right? The truth is what Netflix was trying to accomplish here isn’t the same as what you see via cable every Superbowl. It’s also not the same as the video-on-demand (VOD) streaming for which they’ve become so lauded.

So, what exactly is it, and what went wrong?

 

Streaming and Broadcasting are NOT the Same

Credit where credit is due. Streaming live to millions of viewers is a huge endeavor and Netflix was bound to run into issues. And no, this isn’t the same as NBC bringing the Superbowl to houses across America. Here’s why.

Cable networks broadcast their video. In other words, they use a one-to-many video distribution model, sending a single signal that is then picked up by many devices. This signal is cast broadly (hence the term). No specific connection is made with any end-user device. While there are downsides to this method, one thing is certain: when sending video out to millions, broadcasting is a lot less resource intensive than streaming.

Streaming is a many-to-many model. Basically, each stream that is sent out is sent over a connection made between the sender and the recipient. So, when millions of people request to watch a live stream, millions of streams are being sent. That’s a lot for any system to handle.

It’s important to appreciate this distinction, but it doesn’t answer the whole question. Why, for example, is Netflix able to stream on-demand to so many without suffering the same consequences?

 

Reliable VOD Does Not Guarantee Reliable Live Video

Let’s talk a little about the journey a stream takes when sent on-demand.

Netflix uses a content delivery network (CDN), which caches video data at edge servers across the globe. This web of servers balances the load of millions of streams by strategically identifying which server will fulfill a given streaming request. It’s therefore possible that when you opt to watch Stranger Things, you’re only really communicating with the server closest to you, which has that content saved and ready to send your way.

What’s more, Netflix uses adaptive bitrate streaming (ABR) which helps to optimize its VOD assets for delivery to specific devices. Remember how we said that streaming creates a connection between the sender and the receiver? With ABR, the connection allows the sender to measure the available bandwidth on the viewer’s side and transcode the video files to optimize playback. So, if your favorite show is coming off a little grainy, it’s likely more to do with your network than Netflix.

This combination of technologies is part of what makes Netflix so reliable in the VOD streaming space. Why didn’t it work for live event streaming?

 

Live Event Streaming Has Its Own Set of Demands

Live events also often stream through content delivery networks. However, their journey through this web of servers is a little different because there can be no preemptive caching of the video content well ahead of time. Instead, the content is sent simultaneously to edge servers across the network and actively cached at each server even as those servers are sending it on to various end user devices.

That is a ton of across network processing happening all at once. Using a CDN for these purposes can definitely help reduce server strain by not requiring a single server to do all the work. However, when accommodating a viewership surge like the one last Friday, it can only do so much.

ABR is also an effective tool for live event streaming. We can safely assume that if Netflix uses ABR for their VOD offerings that they prepared to do the same for the Tyson – Paul fight. However, the question remains if they in any way optimized their encoding ladders for live streaming.

In ABR, an encoding ladder offers a set of tiered bitrate options for the system to choose from when assessing the needs of a given stream. VOD encoding ladders tend to prioritize quality, trying to ensure that the end product is as high-quality as possible. Live encoding ladders tend to prioritize reliability, basically aiming for the highest possible quality without risking buffering or stream failure.

Take all of this with a grain of salt. We can’t know what lengths Netflix went to in planning for this event until they elaborate. However, if you’re wondering why they’d have trouble at all, it’s pretty clear that the demands of a single live event with tens of millions of viewers are different from those of a VOD platform. It’s also possible they didn’t consider optimizing their encoding ladders for reliability over quality.

 

What Now? A Wowza Expert Weighs In

Wowza’s Chief Solutions Architect, Barry Owen, has few concerns when it comes to Netflix’s plan to try their hand at live sporting events again this Christmas.

“Netflix uses its own CDN for the most part,” Owen explains, “which is likely optimized for VOD – with a lot of edges embedded at local ISPs. It was probably somewhere along that chain where things went wrong.” He goes on to note that a backup CDN, if they weren’t already using one, might have helped mitigate the issues.

However, Owen is far from critical.

“Live streaming at that kind of massive scale is still really hard and there is a lot that can go wrong,” he concedes. “We’ll have to see, but I bet there is significant improvement between now and the NFL games on Christmas.”

It seems the key takeaway from this debacle is that while everyone wants to criticize Netflix for what they perceive as a giant flub, live event streaming at this scale is way harder than people realize. You can’t compare it to cable delivery of live sports due to the inherent differences between broadcasting and streaming. You can’t compare it to Netflix’s other attempts to stream live, like the 2023 Chris Rock stand-up special, because none of those streams brought in this many viewers.

Could they have done more? Possibly. But that doesn’t change the fact that Netflix is continuing its long history of trailblazing in the video streaming space. What they learn from this experience may help set the standard for massive live event streaming moving forward.

Want to learn more about how to stream live with confidence? Continue the conversation with Wowza!