Netflix’s NFL debut kicked off on Christmas Day without a glitch.
Mariah Carey opened Wednesday’s doubleheader with a taped performance of “All I Want for Christmas is You” before Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and the two-time defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs faced off against Russell Wilson, T.J. Watt and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The Houston Texans will host the Baltimore Ravens in the second game as the NFL showcases four of the AFC’s top five teams.
Netflix agreed to a three-year contract in May to broadcast Christmas Day games. The streaming giant is expecting 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 games, marking the first time one outlet has distributed an NFL game globally. Netflix has the games available in five languages — English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and German.
Netflix had problems streaming the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight on Nov. 14. The bout peaked at 65 million concurrent streams, including 38 million concurrent streams in the United States. According to the website Down Detector, nearly 85,000 viewers logged problems with outages or streaming leading up to and during the fight.
There were no signs of trouble early Wednesday during the game after a couple of blunders during the pregame show. The broadcast opened with roughly 10 seconds of silence because it appeared studio host Kay Adams’ microphone wasn’t turned on.
The biggest test should come at halftime of the Ravens-Texans game when Beyoncé performs live at NRG Stadium.
According to NFL Media, viewers in all 50 states tuned in within minutes of the pregame show going live and viewers from nearly 200 countries watched the lead-in to kickoff.
The NFL is playing its first games on Wednesday since the Steelers and Ravens were forced to play on Dec. 2, 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The only other time the league played on a Wednesday since 1948 was in 2012 when the Giants and Cowboys met in the season opener.
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