Love it or hate it, fans beyond the sport of boxing tuned in to watch Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul. Despite Netflix’s buffering systems crashing, over 65 million households remained glued to their screens. Additionally, millions more flocked to former NFL star Antonio Brown’s illegal stream—a fact that the Problem Child made sure to emphasize.

Although it is unclear whether all viewers from ‘AB’s livestream were looking for a pirated stream or just tuned in due to Netflix’s crash, the number of viewers (over 6.6 million) is what the entire world is talking about. Per Paul, this number surpassed the average viewership of the NBA playoffs in 2024.

Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul: Record-breaking night

Antonio Brown decided to livestream the video board from the Cowboys’ AT&T stadium. Nearly 7 million fans tuned in to watch this livestream. But they didn’t just watch. Fans and journalists around the globe took screenshots of ‘AB’s stream and circled it around the internet. One such screenshot from Alex Barth, a Patriots Catch-22 podcast co-host and journalist, reached Jake Paul, and he was quick to respond.

‘El Gallo,’ on his X post, said: “More people watched an illegal stream of my fight with Mike Tyson [than] what the NBA playoffs averaged in 2024 @netflix.” Reveling his success, the 27-year-old star took pride in this unusual achievement. Quick to respond, ‘AB‘ joked, “Jake Paul. Welcome to #CTESPN.” 

Reportedly, the 2024 NBA playoffs averaged 4.53 million viewers across ABC, ESPN, and TNT – a 12% decline on the previous year’s post-season, per SportsPro Media. However, the streaming viewership was not the only record-breaking milestone achieved that night.

In a thrilling co-main event, Katie Taylor successfully defended her undisputed light welterweight titles, retaining her WBA, WBC, WBO, IBF, IBO, and The Ring female light-welterweight titles against formidable challenger Amanda Serrano. Adding to their list of world records, Serrano and Taylor became the most-watched women’s boxing match in history. Furthermore, they earned a record-breaking $12 million-plus in fight purse combined, the highest in women’s boxing history.

And, there’s more...

List of records broken by the Tyson vs. Paul Netflix showdown

Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul broke the biggest boxing gate record outside of Las Vegas. Additionally, per the Problem Child, the event reportedly surpassed the UFC’s biggest gates to date. “Crazy that we did a bigger gate than every UFC event [in] history & that company is 30+ years old. Biggest gate of Mike Tyson’s career. Biggest attendance of Mike’s career. Biggest viewership of Mike’s career. Biggest combat sports gate in US combat sports history outside of Las Vegas. It takes 2 to tango,” gloated ‘El Gallo’ in one of his X posts. 

Nevertheless, some reports, including Paul’s MVP promotions, claim the event generated around $18 million in gate revenue, surpassing Canelo Alvarez‘s previous record of $9 million vs. Billy Joe Saunders in May 2021 at the same venue.

Besides Canelo Alvarez and the UFC, the Tyson vs. Paul showdown shattered Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor‘s US record for commercial distribution location sales. However, the Notorious refused to acknowledge this achievement, stating: “No record of mine was broke you fool what’s that jack_ saying?” in a now-deleted X post.

With Mike Tyson and Jake Paul headlining the event, Netflix kickstarted its boxing debut by breaking several records on fight night. Do you think streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon Prime should do more boxing events to bring the sweet science into new households?