To hear Netflix tell it, an NFL-sized audience tuned into the Canelo Alvarez-Terence Crawford fight.
Saturday’s Terence Crawford-Canelo Alvarez main event averaged 20.3 million viewers in the United States, Netflix said Monday, sourcing both its own internal data and the measurement company VideoAmp. Worldwide, the bout is said to have averaged 36.6 million from opening to closing bell and 41 million over the course of the weekend.
As with the figure Netflix released for its Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight last November, which relied on internal data and the measurement company TVision, the Crawford-Alvarez number is not directly comparable to the Nielsen-estimated viewership that is traditionally reported.
If one were to draw such a comparison, the Crawford-Alvarez fight would rank ahead of both of the streaming-exclusive NFL games this season, Chargers-Chiefs on YouTube in Week 1 (18.5M) and Packers-Commanders on Prime Video in Week 2 (17.8M). But such comparisons are fairly meaningless given those three events used three different methodologies; Netflix and VideoAmp for the boxing, a Nielsen custom methodology for YouTube, and Nielsen “Big Data + Panel” for Amazon.
Netflix averaged 24 million viewers for its two NFL games last Christmas, but that used still another methodology — Nielsen’s panel-only metric that is now obsolete.
In addition to the Crawford-Alvarez and Paul-Tyson fights, Netflix also reported an audience of 4.2 million for a bout between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano in July. That was also sourced to Netflix internal data and VideoAmp.
VideoAmp is emerging as perhaps the primary Nielsen competitor, and per a recent Wall Street Journal report is now working with both the NFL and ESPN. In that WSJ article, NFL chief data and analytics officer Paul Ballew was publicly critical of Nielsen for undercounting the league’s viewership. Ballew would later refer to VideoAmp as “intriguing” in a call with reporters.
If one is to believe that more than 20 million viewers watched a streaming-exclusive boxing event that did not begin until after 1 AM ET, then one can only imagine what kind of viewership figure an NFL game would generate when using the same methodology.
Nielsen, for its part, has repeatedly sued VideoAmp alleging patent infringement — going as far as to almost immediately refile a lawsuit against the company within days of having a previous suit dismissed.
