• by Wayne Friedman , December 17, 2024

Netflix is now the latest premium streaming service to see major subscriber gains due to a single high-profile sporting event -- the “Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson” boxing match last month.

Streaming subscription researcher Antenna says Netflix gained a rare spike of 1.43 million new subscribers for the November 15 event over a three-day period (November 14-November 16).

The researcher’s analysis says that this sharp rise is not the norm for Netflix, which “historically had a very steady rate of sign-ups, with minimal variance day-to-day.” Antenna says it was the largest single subscriber acquisition period since it started covering the subscription video streaming business in 2019.

The researcher noted that in 2023, Netflix’s password crackdown did generate an increase in acquisition, but over a longer period, and just slightly increasing from, its average daily sign-up rate.

The biggest sports event for a subscription service over the last year was the Super Bowl LVII streamed on Paramount+ (and over-the-air on CBS) in February 2024 -- rocketing up 3.2 million (February 10-12).

Over the period, Peacock had the next largest number of sign-ups for an exclusive NFL AFC Wild Card Kansas City Chiefs-Miami Dolphins game (January 12-14), which had 2.85 million signups.

Later that summer, Peacock’s Paris Olympics pulled in 1.79 million over the period from July 26-July 28.