NFL enthusiasts were visibly irked with Netflix due to technical glitches while attempting to tune into the league’s Christmas Day games. On Wednesday, Netflix was scheduled to stream two AFC matchups – the Pittsburgh Steelers against the Kansas City Chiefs and the Houston Texans versus the Baltimore Ravens – after shelling out $150 million for the broadcasting rights to each game.

However, the platform faced early hiccups in airing the battle between the reigning champions and the AFC North frontrunners, drawing criticism. Viewers encountered numerous technical snafus; even before the first half concluded at Acrisure Stadium, viewers complained of streaming issues during the high-profile NFL game.

Additionally, the Netflix score bug erroneously displayed the Steelers with only two timeouts as the game commenced. In another mishap, during the pregame segment, cameras switched to host Kay Adams for her broadcast introduction on late Wednesday morning – yet instead of Adams’s speech, the audience heard welcome music.

Social media saw a surge of disgruntled Netflix users expressing their discontent. One frustrated user exclaimed, “I can’t even see the ball. Netflix can’t handle this. Pixelated garbage!!!” while another suggested, “@netflix Fix your video quality! Call @amazon they can help you out with live streaming! Do better @NFL! #NetflixNFL.”

One disgruntled Netflix user complained, “Hey Netflix, I thought we said leave the streaming to Amazon Prime?!” Another voiced their dissatisfaction, stating, “Deeply unhappy with Netflix. Disaster delay presenting NFL game Chiefs at Steelers. Netflix must exit that market.”

This negativity isn’t new for Netflix; previously, in November, the platform faced heavy fire for numerous technical issues during the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight event.

As the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight night unfolded, an array of Netflix users aired grievances about significant streaming disruptions, particularly as Katie Taylor squared off against Amanda Serrano in the co-main event.

Cameo interviews with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and boxing legend Evander Holyfield were also momentarily impacted by audio malfunctions.

In anticipation of holiday programming, November saw the NFL proactively reaching out to Netflix for reassurances after the Tyson-Paul fiasco to ensure similar snafus wouldn’t affect their Christmas Day coverage, insiders Dan Graziano and Jeremy Fowler of ESPN reported on November 20.

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Netflix reported that the fight was streamed in 60 million homes, and they explained to the league that the challenges they faced were partly due to the unprecedented scale of broadcasting a live sporting event. “But the NFL came away from the conversations reassured that Netflix had figured out what went wrong and that it won’t be a problem for Chiefs-Steelers or Ravens-Texans on Dec. 25.”

In a conversation with USA Today earlier this week, Netflix stated that it had learned from its previous errors.

“We now know from experience what are the main pressure points in our infrastructure and are promptly addressing them ahead of the NFL games,” the company announced. “Some behaviors of our live streaming systems are impossible to replicate in a test and are only visible at huge scale with real viewers. We studied that in detail and are adjusting our content delivery, encoding, and streaming protocols accordingly.”