Ex-NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown ‘came to the rescue’ of millions of fans as he live streamed the Mike Tyson and Jake Paul fight after the Netflix broadcast crashed.

The eagerly-anticipated bout on Friday night at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, was marred by streaming issues in Netflix’s first foray in live sporting events. Many viewers were left frustrated as their stream buffered or crashed, including during the co main event of the Tyson-Paul bout and Katie Taylor’s defense of her light-welterweight titles against Amanda Serrano.

While many thought their chance to watch the fight had been scuppered by the technical issues, Brown live streamed the event on his social media. The Super Bowl-winning wide receiver drew six million viewers at one point.

Brown’s ‘CTESPN’ stream was filmed from a suite inside the stadium which lasted for nearly two hours. The 36-year-old was lauded for providing an alternative to the botched Netflix stream as he recorded the massive JerryWorld videoboard.

He posted the streaming numbers after the fight, boasting that he hosted almost 7.7million live viewers across the entire event. “We BROKE a record tonight,” Brown said as he gave a shoutout to X owner Elon Musk, who has made some major changes to the app since acquiring it in October 2022.

Despite the outrage from fans over Netflix’s streaming problems, Paul praised the platform after taking home at least $40million from the fight. Paul thanked Netflix for hosting the event in his post-fight interview. “Everyone’s ecstatic. Shout out to Netflix. Amazing partners, amazing people,” Paul said about his victory.

Jake Paul - Mike Tyson

The Paul-Tyson fight was marred by streaming issues on Netflix ( 

Image:

Getty Images for Netflix © 2024)

“I think it’s six times what I thought, but the numbers are still coming in. Netflix crashed, yeah. But shoutout to the Netflix engineers, we love them, they fixed it straight away. Shoutout to them.”

Those who did get to watch the fight on Netflix were probably wishing they hadn’t after cameras cut to footage of Tyson’s backside during a break between rounds of the Taylor-Serrano bout. The action when it came to the main event also completely underwhelmed with Paul claiming that Tyson’s approach made it difficult to put on a spectacle.

“Thank you for everyone tuning in and coming,” Paul said. “I tried to give the fight the best fight I possibly could, but when someone’s just surviving in the ring, basically, it’s hard to make it exciting,” Paul said. “I could really get him to engage me or slip shots or do something super cool or whatever. But I don’t care what people have to say. It is what it is.”

Netflix’s first venture into live sporting events was far from smooth as frozen screens and spinning wheels affected the show. It will be a major concern for the platform, fans and NFL organizers alike with Netflix set to stream two NFL games on Christmas Day.