Netflix's Jake Paul-Mike Tyson disaster doesn't bode well for NFL's Christmas Day plan

Between hardcore boxing fans and curious onlookers, Netflix drew quite the audience for Friday night's fight between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson. Unfortunately, that audience didn't actually get to see much of the fight — or much of the undercard, for that matter.

The Paul-Tyson bout represented a golden opportunity for Netflix, a chance to prove that it could be a player in the live sports space now and into the future as more and more streamers snatch up rights deals. After how poorly things went on Friday night, though, the streaming giant seems hardly ready for primetime.

Netflix falls flat in first live sports test during Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight

It didn't take long for the technical issues to set in. Between buffering, lags and a pixelated stream, the undercard fights were a rough watch. But that was just the beginning: Right before the Paul-Tyson match was set to begin, the stream crashed entirely, only coming back in stops and starts throughout the main event.

And even when the stream was working properly, there was plenty of evidence that Netflix wasn't ready for primetime, like when they managed to show ... a little bit too much of Tyson as he walked away from a pre-fight interview.

Not that people wound up missing much. Tyson looked every bit the 58-year-old retiree he actually is, while the 27-year-old Paul seemed mostly content to take it easy and cruise to a win via unanimous decision. There were no real viral moments, no knockout blows or trash talk, just a YouTube star toying with an old man decades past his prime — not exactly must-see TV even if your stream was functioning perfectly.

Add in all the glitches, though, and this became an outright disaster. If this was your first live stream experience with Netflix, it's safe to say you weren't left excited at the prospect of more in the future. And that's a big problem, because there will be more in the future, and the stakes will be a lot higher than a novelty boxing match.

The NFL can't be thrilled ahead of two huge Christmas Day matchups

The NFL is determined to monopolize as much of the fall and winter calendar as it can get its hands on. So despite Christmas falling on a Tuesday this year, we're getting two football games anyway, with the Kansas City Chiefs taking on the Pittsburgh Steelers at 1 p.m. ET followed by the Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans at 4:30 p.m. ET. And because the NFL is also determined to squeeze as much revenue as it can out of its broadcast inventory, it chose to spin off those games off to the highest bidder — which turned out to be none other than Netflix.

Which brings us back to Friday night. If the streaming giant can't handle some boxing matches late on a Friday night, how can it possibly be expected to handle two marquee NFL matchups with the nation watching on a holiday afternoon? Safe to say, fans are not optimistic.

Maybe the Paul-Tyson disaster will allow Netflix to iron out the kinks ahead of time, figuring out what went wrong and how to fix it with over a month still to go before Christmas. But at this point, it seems like Reed Hastings is headed toward a colossal embarrassment, one that will make us all suffer along with it.