Research Reveals The Nations Most Enthralled By Netflix’s Tyson-Paul Fight
EXCLUSIVE: Netflix’s Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight was pretty uneventful in the moment, but that didn’t stop viewers around the world from flocking to the tussle in Texas.
Data from TV insights company PlumResearch shows that Brazil, the UK, Germany and Australia were the biggest viewers watching the 27-year-old Paul soundly defeat former world heavyweight champion Tyson, 58, outside the U.S..
More from Deadline
Brazil contributed 7.1 million live or near-live viewers, with the UK close behind. Germany took 5 million with Australia just behind that number. Given the fight happened in the early hours of the European day, the figures are all the more notable there.
“Despite significant time differences, audiences generally showed strong engagement, with European, and UK engagement with the main event exceeding expectations,” said Plum Research Director Jonathan Broughton.
North America led it live viewership overall, Plum reports, with just over 37% of of all streams of the main event (31 million) coming from the continent and 43% of undercard viewing. They were also the most likely to stay the duration, with 80% completion rates for the entire broadcast. Including catch-up over 24 hours, North American audiences hit nearly 40 million, with 29 million in the U.S. Most (75%) who streamed the event also watched the undercard, which featured top female fighters Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano, though audiences in Europe were less likely, with 56% skipping the lower card fights.
South America was second overall, taking 13% of total viewers and Europe accounted for 11%. South America also had the highest percentage of live or near-live viewers, at 84% of its 11.6 million uniques of the full event. Europeans contributed 21.2 million to the main event, more than doubling its undercard audience. Over 70% of the UK watched live, with Germans watching after the event notably higher.
Asia added a total of 11.1 million uniques, with 4.2 million from India. Oceania had 6.5 million overall, with most watching post-fight.
Over the weekend, Netflix reported that 60 million households watched the evening’s main event live, with a peak of 65 million concurrent streams, making it a huge hit for the platform despite technical issues and a largely uneventful fight.
PlumResearch has further analyzed the numbers and recorded a further 54 million unique views over a 24-hour period. Given that live sports usually see almost all viewing gained live, that is no mean feat and likely points to the celebrity feel to the event, with influencer Paul taking on Tyson, who was fighting professionally for the first time in nearly two decades.
“The raw results are strong,” said PlumResearch Director Jonathan Broughton. “This event marks a key moment for Netflix as it enters live sports. A refusal for audiences to engage, and in particular a refusal to engage live, as observed with the Netflix Cup and Netflix Slam, could have necessitated a rethink around live sports strategy.
“Our data shows broad global reach amidst varied viewing behaviours. Some estimates place new subscribers for this event as high as 10%, but if just 3% of the live audience were new subscribers, based on lifetime value estimates, Netflix could net approximately half a billion dollars from this event.”
PlumResearch measures streaming audiences through a ‘unique viewers’ metric that is slightly different to Netflix’s household and concurrent stream methods. The company uses a software panel that assesses data from around 2.5 million connected devices globally.
Best of Deadline
Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
