One of the most controversial boxing events in recent memory took place in the U.S In mid-November: 27-year-old American blogger Jake Paul faced off against 58-year-old Mike Tyson, the former undisputed heavyweight champion, who had retired in 2005. The fight was streamed on Netflix, drawing millions of viewers, though the livestreaming numbers were much more modest: it didn't manage to beat the record set by Spanish streamer Ibai and his La Velada del Año events.
The buildup to the fight had been intense for months. The two exchanged sharp remarks on social media and in interviews, and the match was postponed several times due to Tyson’s health issues. On November 16, the fight finally took place at the 80,000-seat football stadium in Arlington, Texas. The official pre-show and the main event itself were broadcast on Netflix, and according to the streaming service, the event drew 65 million viewers, landing it in the top 10 sports events with the highest viewership of all time.
The official broadcast of the fight was available on Netflix, free for all subscribers. The platform aired the pre-show, which included the weigh-ins, interviews, and other behind-the-scenes content featuring Paul and Tyson. Before the main event, there were several "undercard" fights from Most Valuable Promotions, the agency behind Jake Paul’s bouts and others. These matches were streamed separately on the official Most Valuable Promotions YouTube channel, drawing over 483,000 Peak Viewers, but the main fight between Paul and Tyson was shown exclusively on Netflix.
The fight also generated a lot of livestreaming coverage. Some streamers on Twitch, YouTube, and other platforms took the risk of broadcasting the fight on their channels, even though they faced the possibility of being taken down due to legal issues (nearly all of these streams have since been removed). Popular streamers opted to host Watch Parties, where they didn’t stream the fight itself but discussed it in a radio-show style, interacting with their audiences and other streamers. In total, over 11,300 unique channels covered the Paul vs. Tyson match in some form. That’s a significant number for a sporting event: for comparison, the recent U.S. presidential election, one of the most anticipated in recent history, was streamed on nearly 15,600 channels.
According to Netflix, the fight racked up 224.8 million hours of watch time on their platform. In contrast, live- streaming numbers were much lower, reaching just 5.46 million — about the same as Apple’s September event when they introduced the iPhone 16.
Over 66.7% of watch time came from YouTube broadcasts, showcasing the platform's clear dominance. The majority of streamers covering the event were based in the U.S. (61.19%). Geographically, the Paul vs. Tyson match was most popular in North America and some parts of South America, but it didn’t attract much interest from European content creators.
The fight lasted eight rounds, each two minutes long, but the entire event, including the pre-show on Netflix, spanned about seven hours. Streamers had a tough time keeping their audience engaged for that long, so viewership fluctuated throughout. Two major peaks in audience activity were recorded: 1.24 million viewers tuned in at the end of the pre-show on Netflix Sports, followed by a noticeable drop. The second peak occurred during the final rounds, drawing 2.23 million viewers.
The top 10 live-streaming channels that covered the Paul vs. Tyson fight were all on YouTube. Leading the pack was Canadian gaming streamer Troydan, whose channel peaked at over 985,000 viewers — a career high for him. It’s important to note that nearly all of the channels that streamed the fight have since removed their recordings, but they still have data on viewer activity, which shows that the highest online viewership came during the Tyson vs. Paul fight.
There were also illegal broadcasts by smaller streamers on Twitch (they also deleted their streams due to legal issues). However, popular streamers like summit1g and stableronaldo chose not to risk getting their channels banned. Instead, they hosted reaction watch parties, where they didn’t show the fight itself but discussed it with their viewers and other streamers.
While top Twitch streamers didn’t broadcast the fight itself, the event sparked a lot of discussion in the chats. Users on the platform talked more about Tyson than Paul, with mentions of the boxing legend making up 58.3% of the conversation, compared to 41.6% for Paul.
The most chatter about the fight happened on the channel of Kai Cenat, the most popular Twitch streamer in the U.S. The fight was also a hot topic in chats on channels like summit1g, Mizkif, xQc, and others. Looking at the trends, mentions of the fighters steadily grew during the pre-show, from 2,000 to 12,000 messages per hour, and during the actual fight, that number jumped to 38,700 mentions.
The peak live-stream viewership for the Paul vs. Tyson fight hit 2.22 million viewers — a solid number for a sports event, though the industry has seen bigger figures. For instance, the last three La Velada del Año boxing events, organized by popular Spanish streamer ibai, attracted even more viewers, with peak audiences ranging from 3.35 million to 4.34 million. That said, the Paul vs. Tyson fight still outperformed live-streamed boxing events like Stream Fighters from Colombian streamer WestCol, as well as the broadcast of the match between actor Jefri Nichol and musician El Rumi at the Superstars Knockout Tournament.
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