Beyonce provides more excitement during any game Netflix's NFL debut on Christmas Day.
Riding on a white horse, as half of his time 32 time grammy winner rocked the crowd in his hometown of Houston on Wednesday with a nearly 13-minute performance.
He surprised fans by bringing out Shaboozie for a performance of “Sweet Honey Buckin'” and Post Malone joined him for “Levi's Jeans”.
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The action on the field did not live up to expectations as the NFL featured four of the top five AFC teams.
Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce exposed the fumbles in Pittsburgh's defense during Kansas City's 29–10 loss in the first game.
According to NFL Media, the broadcast went well and quickly became the second most popular live title on Netflix ever.
Lamar Jackson and the Ravens led C.J. Stroud and the Texans 17–2 at halftime before Beyoncé won the show. With Jackson resting most of the fourth quarter, Baltimore won 31–2.
Mariah Carey opened the football doubleheader with a taped performance of “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and then watched as the two-time defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs defeated the Steelers to clinch the No. 1 seed in the AFC.
After Netflix experienced minor glitches at the beginning of the pregame show, there were no signs of any major problems with streaming during the game. The broadcast began with about 10 seconds of silence because it appeared that studio host Kay Adams' microphone was not on.
Beyoncé's live performance at NRG Stadium was supposed to be the biggest test for the streaming giant and it looked like it would go off without a hitch.
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Mahomes threw for 320 yards and three touchdowns and Kelce had eight catches for 84 yards and a score as the Chiefs (15-1) clinched a first-round bye and clinched home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs. The Steelers (10-6) have lost three straight games and may have to settle for a wild-card berth.
Jackson threw two touchdown passes and ran for a score and Derrick Henry had 147 yards rushing and a TD to help the Ravens (11-5) move into first place in the AFC North, one game ahead of Pittsburgh.
Netflix agreed to a three-year contract in May to broadcast the Christmas Day Games. The NFL is expected to give the streaming service one of its biggest days since the site launched in 1998.
Netflix's 282.3 million subscribers in more than 190 countries can stream the game, marking the first time an outlet has distributed an NFL game globally. Netflix had the games available in five languages – English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German.
Netflix there were problems streaming mike tyson-jake paul fight On November 14, the stream peaked at 65 million concurrent streams, including 38 million concurrent streams in the United States. According to website Down Detector, approximately 85,000 viewers reported streaming interruptions before and during the fight.
According to NFL Media, viewers from all 50 states tuned in within minutes of the pregame show going live, and viewers from nearly 200 countries watched the first game. Before Ravens-Texans began, Netflix reported that it had surpassed its peak concurrent viewers of any Christmas season in the past four years.
The NFL was playing its first game on Wednesday since the Steelers and Ravens were forced to play on December 2, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Only the second time the league has played on a Wednesday since 1948 was in 2012 when the Giants and Cowboys met in the season opener.
The NFL played its first games on Christmas Day in 1971 with a pair of divisional playoff games. The league avoided playing on December 25 from 1972–88 and moved the entire slate of games to Saturday if Christmas fell on a Sunday. Since 1989, there have been 30 games on Christmas, never more than three on that day. But the NFL went out of its way to schedule two games on Wednesday to accommodate its $150 million deal with Netflix.
This was not the first time NFL games aired exclusively on a streaming service. The league's Thursday night games are in their third season on Amazon Prime Video, Peacock streamed the Packers-Eagles game in Sao Paulo, Brazil earlier in the week and Prime Video will stream a wild-card game. Additionally, the “Sunday Ticket” package moved to YouTube TV last year.
The largest audience for a stream-exclusive NFL game was 23 million on Peacock for last season's AFC wild-card game between the Miami Dolphins and Chiefs.