NFL, celebrity boxing, and hot dogs: Netflix’s push into live TV – The Verge

Netflix’s Star Search will let you vote to decide who wins

2026-01-20T12:29:58-05:00

Though Netflix's upcoming Star Search reboot will feature a panel of celebrity judges, viewers are going to have a hand in choosing which contestants win the competition.

Ahead of Star Search's premiere tonight, Netflix has announced that it is launching a new real-time voting functionality that will give you the ability to tell the streamer which performer you want to see succeed. Rather than having to send in a text message or visit a special website as was the case with American Idol, Star Search's voting can be done within the Netflix app while the show is airing live on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 9PM ET / 6PM PT.

In addition to the a …

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Netflix snags Elle Duncan from ESPN to host live events

2025-12-18T12:11:15-05:00

Netflix is bringing ESPN host Elle Duncan onboard to become the voice of its growing roster of live events. Duncan, who has appeared on SportsCenter, College GameDay, and WNBA Countdown, will make her debut on Netflix with next year's Skyscraper Live broadcast.

During the livestream, free solo climber Alex Honnold will attempt to ascend the 11th-tallest building in the world, Taiwan's Taipei 101. Netflix doesn't mention any other live events that Duncan might host as part of its "multiyear" deal with the anchor, but by hiring Duncan, Netflix makes it clear that the company has big plans for the future of live sports and other events.

In ad …

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Netflix signs a three-year deal to stream MLB live events and games

2025-11-20T05:31:51-05:00

Today, Major League Baseball announced new media rights deals with ESPN, NBCUniversal, and Netflix that run for the next three seasons. The Netflix deal brings live MLB games to its platform and continues to grow its library of sports programming in an arrangement that Front Office Sports reports is worth about $50 million per year.

Netflix will stream a single game on Opening Night of each season, the Home Run Derby, and one "special event game" each year. In 2026, that will cover the "Field of Dreams" game broadcast from Dyersville, Iowa, on August 13th, 2026, between the Minnesota Twins and Philadelphia Phillies.

The games signed up by …

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Netflix is bringing back Star Search as a live show

2025-05-14T15:24:55-04:00

Netflix is adding an important category to its live offerings: talent competition. The streamer announced that it will be reviving Star Search, the classic American Idol and America's Got Talent precursor that has been off the air since 1995. The modern iteration will air live twice a week on Netflix, and viewers will be able to vote on contestants across four categories: music, dance, variety / comedy, and kids.

A lot of details are still to be announced, including who the host and judges will be and when the new Star Search will start streaming. But Netflix has tapped longtime America's Got Talent showrunner Jason Raff to lead the project …

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Netflix follows Paul vs. Tyson fight with another boxing stream in July

2025-03-06T09:57:32-05:00

Netflix is airing another live boxing match. The service will exclusively stream a rematch between Amanda Serrano and Katie Taylor on Friday, July 11th, according to an announcement on Thursday.

The two boxers previously went head-to-head on Netflix in the leadup to the boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul last November, which ended with Taylor's controversial win. For their third fight, the pair will headline an all-women's card at Madison Square Garden.

Though Netflix's livestream ran into some technical hiccups during the Paul vs. Tyson match, the company seems to have stepped up its game since then. Its live Christmas Day NFL …

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Netflix’s live push continues with John Mulaney’s late-night talk show

2025-03-06T09:58:05-05:00

Netflix is diving deeper into live content with a new late-night talk show hosted by comedian John Mulaney. Starting March 12th, Netflix will air Everybody's Live with John Mulaney every Wednesday at 10PM ET.

The late-night show, which Netflix will stream live for 12 weeks, will feature chats with celebrity guests. It marks the second live series that Netflix now streams regularly, in addition to WWE's Monday Night Raw.

Up until this year, Netflix had only used live streams for one-time events, like the Love is Blind reunion, the fight with Jake Paul and Mike Tyson, live NFL games, and various comedy specials. Not all of these events went …

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Netflix will stream the Women’s World Cup in 2027 and 2031

2024-12-20T09:25:45-05:00

Netflix's push into live sports has snagged another major event. Today the streamer announced that it has acquired US streaming rights for the FIFA Women's World Cup in both 2027 and 2031. FIFA is calling the deal "a landmark announcement for women's football."

The 2027 edition of the tournament will take place in Brazil, while the following World Cup doesn't yet have a host nation. The Netflix coverage in the US will include both English- and Spanish-language broadcasts, and the streamer says that it will be creating more coverage in addition to the live matches:

Studio shows and top-tier talent will supplement coverage with commentary an …

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Netflix says the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight was ‘the most-streamed sporting event ever’

2024-11-19T15:04:03-05:00

Despite widespread issues with video quality and buffering, Netflix's live-streamed Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul boxing match brought in an average of 108 million viewers, based on TVision data in the US and first-party data in global markets. With 65 million concurrent streams, Netflix says the fight was the "most-streamed global sporting event ever."

Of those simultaneous streams, 38 million were from households in the US, and the TVision data says it accounted for 56 percent of TV viewing between midnight and 1AM that day.

Meanwhile, the match between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano broke the record for the "most-watched professional women' …

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If Netflix can’t make live work, can anyone?

2024-11-19T09:10:18-05:00

The Paul / Tyson fight on Friday was very popular. Netflix streamed it into more than 60 million households, which is a huge number for any TV event, much less a streaming-only one. Whether the whole thing went well, though, is another matter. The fight itself wasn't very exciting, and for a large portion of the audience it wouldn't have mattered if it was - all they could see was laggy, pixelated nothingness. Netflix is clearly bought in to live programming and sports, but is it ready to do it big?

On this episode of The Vergecast, The Verge's Richard Lawler joins the show to talk through the state of sports streaming. We talk about the up …

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Netflix’s Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight was a big moment for Bluesky

2024-11-18T12:34:04-05:00

It was morbid curiosity that made me tune in to Netflix's live boxing match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson on Friday night. The stream ran into technical issues, and the fight itself was slow and ponderous. But there was something else that kept me watching: all of the jokes flying on Bluesky.

That kind of real-time social experience is a large part of what made X feel so vital back when it was still called Twitter. Whether it was the World Cup or a presidential election or a Nintendo Direct, having so many people posting in one place made it feel alive, an experience that Meta's Threads, with its algorithmic feed, hasn't been able to rep …

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