In November, Mike Tyson and Jake Paul broke records and competed in one of the most watched boxing fights ever. According to Netflix, the platform that broadcast the fight, the clash garnered 108 million global viewers, heralding the entry of Netflix into the live streaming domain. The streaming platform then ventured into more live-streaming programs with two NFL Christmas Day games as well as WWE Monday Night Raw on January 20, 2025.

The NFL program, alongside the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight and Squid Games season 2 were three of the most streamed events in the fourth quarter of 2024, allowing Netflix to beat Wall Street analyst expectations for revenue and income. Netflix posted a quarterly revenue of $10.25 billion well over the projected $10.1 billion. It was Netflix’s strongest period for net subscriber growth ever as the company added 19 million subscribers in the last 3 months.

Undoubtedly, the Tyson-Paul match played a huge role in this exponential growth. However, after Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters claimed that the boxing match had little impact on their subscriber growth in the quarter, ‘The Problem Child’ had an answer for him as well as the NFL fans.

Jake Paul scoffs at the comparison

El Gallo shared a screengrab of the ‘Sports Business Journal’ article on his Instagram story comparing the Tyson-Paul fight and the two NFL Christmas games’ impact on Netflix’s quarterly growth. The article stated that the NFL’s Christmas Day debut allowed Netflix to contribute 8/5% of the total streaming in December. It was Netflix’s best share in streaming across all platforms since July 2023. Netflix also shared that the site’s subscription was up by 14% between November 25 and December 29.

The SBJ also shared separate research from Antenna firm which showed that the 656,000 signups during the NFL special period were way above the number of people who subscribed to the platform in the lead-up to the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight. Saying his fight contributed less to their quarterly subscriber growth was one thing but saying two NFL games received higher subscriber sign-ups than his match-up with Tyson was just something Jake Paul could not sit back and take. The Problem Child immediately tagged Netflix while sharing his thoughts on the report.

While the exact difference between subscribers was not shared, in the captions of the screengrab, Jake Paul made sure everyone knew it was “Not close…” El Gallo’s two-word reply sums up his feelings about the comparison presented in the report. This reply came after Netflix’s co-CEO Greg Peters revealed that the live-streamed events were not the reason for their sudden growth.

Sticking around for content

In a conversation with ‘Media Play News,’ Peters claimed, “It’s really the whole service that is working. The vast majority of our net adds were driven by our broad [content] slate portfolio globally,” and gave the credit of growth to their overall content.

Even though he accepted that the boxing fight brought subscribers, they only stuck around because of the content. “We’re thrilled that some came in for the fight, some came in for the [NFL] games, but they stuck around for ‘Squid Game,’ Carry-On, ‘Black Doves,’ Six Triple Eight, and Nick Bargatze’s comedy special,” declared Peters.

Peters also stated that the live-streaming events have worked well for them, but it doesn’t attribute much to the revenue. For that, “The product, the pricing, the marketing, the advertising…all those things have to work well. And we saw really strong execution across the board throughout the quarter and throughout the year,” Peters added.

While at this point, it does not look like there is any tension between Netflix and MVP, things can get tricky. Any streaming platform would love to land a Jake Paul fight and Netflix wouldn’t want to let him go under any circumstances.

What do you think about Netflix’s CEO’s statement? Do you think that Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson had a huge impact on streamer’s growth? Let us know your thoughts down below.