The real battle is not between Tyson and Paul, but between Netflix and its streaming infrastructure

It has been experimenting with live sports over the past few months with Tennis Expo events. The company has The biggest test of your streaming capabilities yet: a boxing match between YouTuber (and professional boxer) Jake Paul and former world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson.

The battle will be a spectacle for a number of reasons. Both fighters bring star power to the table. There is an age gap of 30 years between them. Despite his 9-1 record, Paul cannot be described as an elite fighter. While Tyson is considered one of the best heavyweights of all time, he retired 19 years ago and has only fought two fights since. Paul’s second bout was on the undercard of Tyson’s last bout, which was against Roy Jones Jr. in 2020.

The fight will take place at the 80,000-seat AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. It’s bound to attract a decent audience through Netflix as well. Most major boxing matches are pay-per-view, but Netflix’s 260 million subscribers will be able to watch them at no extra cost.

Netflix has not released viewing numbers for the Netflix Cup (its golf event) or the Netflix Slam (its recent tennis showcase). Combat sports tend to have high viewership, suggesting that Netflix’s infrastructure will have to handle more simulcasts than any of its other live events so far.

The company has dabbled in other live events over the past year or so, including a weekly cooking show with David Chang. However, the company has faced issues with live streaming in the past, where it was forced to go live love is blind Reunion due to technical problems.

Netflix has about nine months to make sure its streaming capabilities are intact before embarking on its most ambitious sports (well, sports-adjacent) project yet. Starting in January, Netflix will be present in several markets, including the main program raw in the United States.