Netflix executives have long stated that the streaming giant would not interfere in the ever-growing live sports rights business, but it is possible that attitude is changing after the recent streaming venture's huge success vs. Map.
With the company Next up, Netflix will dip into the sports waters with two NFL games on Christmas Day before welcoming WWE in early 2025 after inking a 10-year, $5 billion deal for the promotion's flagship series Monday Night Raw.
It's entirely possible that Netflix's next big jump into live sports could come next year, when potential suitors begin bidding for the UFC's broadcast rights. UFC CEO hasn't discounted that possibility, even if he believes Netflix made a mistake by not getting into live sports much sooner, especially after what just happened with the Paul vs. Tyson fight.
“I always believed in it,” White said of Netflix when speaking to the network Sports Business Journal “I always thought Netflix was crazy not to get into live sports earlier than them. These guys really have a global presence. I think they're late to the game. It was a great success.”
If there was one major complaint about Netflix's broadcast of Paul vs. Tyson, it was the streaming issue that many viewers had, as 65 million concurrent streams bombarded the servers last Saturday night to watch the main event. That led to this while others struggled with constant freezing and poor image quality throughout the transfer.
For his part, White says he hasn't actually experienced these issues, but he believes Netflix used “Paul vs. Tyson” to learn more about live streaming before the NFL lands there in December.
“Actually, I thought it was smart of them [do this fight]“explained White. “I didn't think the event was great, but that's what they had to do. They knew Mike Tyson would bring big numbers. Mike Tyson wanted to make it big and this was a good test for them before they start broadcasting the NFL. They say over 65 million people tuned in at the same time.
“I stayed in a hotel room in New York and didn't have a bad experience. It was a little grainy here and there, but I didn't have a terrible experience. I saw some other people say they did it, but I didn’t.”
While discussions about whether Netflix might do business with UFC won't begin until next year, White isn't ruling out the possibility of working with someone once negotiations begin.
He praised the relationship UFC has built with ESPN and Disney since signing a deal in 2018 to move the promotion's entire programming there, but White knows there will be plenty of interested networks hoping to in the near future to do business with the MMA superpower of the future.
“We are the largest pay-per-view provider in the world,” White said. “I think we will do very well in this next deal.
“I think when we begin our negotiations in 2025, this thing could develop in many different ways. Of course, we could stay with Disney and ESPN for as many years as we want, or we could end up fragmenting all of our content, like WWE and NFL have, with different products going to different networks. I don’t know how that will play out as we get closer to negotiations, but it is a possibility.”
