MAR. 8, 2024
With Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul Fight, Netflix Enters Its Stunt Era
By John Herrman, a contributing writer who covers technology at Intelligencer.
Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty Images
In 2022, after its subscriber numbers dipped for the first time in a decade, Netflix started making some changes. In the coming years, it would raise prices, crack down on password-sharing, spend money more carefully, cut shows more mercilessly, and introduce — after years of marketing itself as the pristine alternative to junked-up television — an ad-supported subscription tier.
This was more of a course correction than a forward-looking plan. Regarding the small matter of actually getting more people to watch and subscribe to Netflix, the company has been doing some experimenting. It’s leaned into sports coverage and programming, with documentaries and occasional live events, including its own tennis tournament. It signed a massive $5 billion deal to air Raw, WWE’s flagship live weekly wrestling show. Also, it announced this:
Netflix and Most Valuable Promotions (MVP) today announced their first-ever partnership in a heavyweight boxing mega-event headlined by The Problem Child, Jake “El Gallo” Paul (9-1, 6 KOs) vs. the Baddest Man on the Planet, Mike Tyson (50-6, 44 KOs). Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson will stream live globally, exclusively on Netflix on Saturday, July 20, 2024 from the 80,000-seat capacity AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, home of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys.
Mike Tyson is the former heavyweight champion of the world, now 57. Jake Paul is a Viner who became a YouTuber who became a rapper who became a boxer (his brother, Logan, followed a similar path to the WWE). Jake Paul is best understood for our purposes as a sort of social-media-era omni-heel — a savvy marketer whom many millions of internet users would like to see punched powerfully in the head. Despite a run of high-profile fights, Jake Paul’s talents as a boxer are hard to assess — most of his opponents have come from outside of the current professional-boxing ranks. Mike Tyson has been retired (more or less) for nearly 20 years. Paul boxed in the undercard of Tyson’s last fight, an exhibition match in 2020. Tyson appeared briefly in a Netflix documentary about Jake Paul released last year.
In another year, this would be a classic pay-per-view event: a strange, compelling, gruesome spectacle that a certain kind of guy might pay to watch with his friends or at a bar. But it’s 2024, and it’s not clear how this sort of thing is supposed to work now. Showtime doesn’t do boxing anymore. Premier Boxing Champions, one of the sport’s biggest promotions (and a former showtime partner) has signed a deal with Amazon, which will start streaming live fights and PPV events this month. Netflix’s expansion into sports content is a play for advertising dollars, but, again, this is its own animal: a one-off stunt match between a YouTuber who once had to apologize for filming a video of a suicide victim in the Aokigahara Forest in Japan and a professional concussion collector who bit off Evander Holyfield’s ear the same year his opponent was born.
It’s an experiment for Netflix and an interesting possible future for a lucrative category of programming that has been orphaned by technology. Maybe this will be a boon to a subscription business at a time when streamers are reaching a natural plateau. Maybe it will get the attention of advertisers and hasten the streaming ecosystem’s gradual transformation into Cable: This Again. Also, hey, maybe someone will get badly hurt! And I imagine a lot of people will be watching to see if they do.
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