Netflix made multiple gaffes in the opening minutes of its NFL broadcasts.
After issues with last month's Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight, the streaming quality of the pre-fight show has held up so far, but Wednesday's Christmas broadcast was silent while Kay Adams started the fight. Her microphone was clearly not turned on for about the first 10 seconds.
A few minutes later, while Mina Kims was speaking, Netflix cut an ad for Squid Game Season 2.
The pregame show then resumed as if nothing had happened.
Netflix will begin its first live NFL broadcast today with two hours of pregame programming starting with Chiefs vs. Steelers at 1 p.m. and Ravens vs. Texans at 4:30 p.m.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Netflix paid $150 million for the two games, and the streamer will get at least one holiday game in each of the next two seasons.
Widespread problems during the Paul vs. Tyson boxing match raised concerns about how Wednesday's broadcast would go, with many of the announced approximately 60 million viewers experiencing buffering issues. .
ESPN reported last month that the NFL had concluded negotiations with Netflix and was “reassured” that Netflix understood what went wrong and that the issue would be resolved by Christmas.
Stream traffic can increase significantly once the Chiefs-Steelers game begins, but stream quality remained adequate early in the pregame show.
However, other technical issues gave a false first impression.
