عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Entertainment

Beyoncé's Performance Highlighted Netflix's NFL debut on Christmas Day

32-time Grammy winner Beyoncé. (The AP/File Photo)
32-time Grammy winner Beyoncé. (The AP/File Photo)
TT
TT

Beyoncé's Performance Highlighted Netflix's NFL debut on Christmas Day

32-time Grammy winner Beyoncé. (The AP/File Photo)
32-time Grammy winner Beyoncé. (The AP/File Photo)

Beyoncé provided more excitement than either game during Netflix’s NFL debut on Christmas Day.

Riding into her halftime appearance on a white horse, the 32-time Grammy winner rocked her hometown Houston crowd with a nearly 13-minute performance on Wednesday.

She surprised fans by bringing along Shaboozey to perform “Sweet Honey Buckiin” and Post Malone joined her for “Levii's Jeans.”

The action on the field didn't live up to expectations as the NFL showcased four of the AFC's top five teams, The AP reported.

Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce exposed a glitch in Pittsburgh's defense during Kansas City's 29-10 rout in the first game.

The broadcast itself went off just fine, quickly becoming the second-most popular live title on Netflix to date, according to NFL Media.

Lamar Jackson and the Ravens led C.J. Stroud and the Texans to 17-2 at halftime before Beyoncé stole the show.

Mariah Carey opened Wednesday’s doubleheader with a taped performance of “All I Want for Christmas is You” and then the two-time defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs trounced the Steelers to clinch the No. 1 seed in the AFC.

There were no signs of any major streaming issues during the game after Netflix experienced minor blunders at the start of the pregame show. The broadcast opened with roughly 10 seconds of silence because it appeared studio host Kay Adams’ microphone wasn’t turned on.

Beyoncé's live performance at NRG Stadium was supposed to be the biggest test for the streaming giant and it seemed to go off without a hitch.

Mahomes threw for 320 yards and three touchdowns and Kelce had eight catches for 84 yards and one score as the Chiefs (15-1) earned a first-round bye and home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs. The Steelers (10-6) have lost three straight games and may have to settle for a wild-card spot instead of an AFC North title.

Netflix agreed to a three-year contract in May to broadcast Christmas Day games. The NFL is expected to give the streaming service one of its biggest days since the site launched in 1998.

Netflix’s 282.3 million subscribers in more than 190 countries could stream the games, marking the first time one outlet distributed an NFL game globally. Netflix had the games available in five languages — English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and German.

Netflix had problems streaming the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight on Nov. 14. The bout peaked at 65 million concurrent streams, including 38 million concurrent streams in the United States. According to the website Down Detector, nearly 85,000 viewers logged problems with outages or streaming leading up to and during the fight.

There were fewer complaints on Wednesday.

According to NFL Media, viewers in all 50 states tuned in within minutes of the pregame show going live and viewers from nearly 200 countries watched the first game. Before the Ravens-Texans kicked off, Netflix reported that it eclipsed its peak concurrent viewers of any Christmas in the past four years.

The NFL was playing its first games on a Wednesday since the Steelers and Ravens were forced to play on Dec. 2, 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The only other time the league played on a Wednesday since 1948 was in 2012 when the Giants and Cowboys met in the season opener.

Commercials Netflix promoted its own programming in addition to the usual slew of advertisements. The first teaser trailer for “Happy Gilmore 2” was released before kickoff. Adam Sandler is back as Happy Gilmore for the sports comedy that hits the streaming service in 2025. Travis Kelce also was featured in a trailer filled with cameos by celebrities, including Bad Bunny and Kid Cudi.

New Christmas tradition The NFL played its first games on Christmas Day in 1971 with a pair of divisional playoff games. The league avoided playing on Dec. 25 from 1972-88 and shifted its full slate of games to Saturday if Christmas fell on a Sunday. Since 1989, there have been 30 games on Christmas, never more than three on that day. But the NFL went out of its way to schedule two games on Wednesday to accommodate its $150 million deal with Netflix.

Broadcasting teams J.J. Watt, a three-time AP Defensive Player of the Year and brother of Steelers four-time All-Pro edge rusher T.J. Watt, and former NFL wide receiver Nate Burleson shared analyst duties for the Chiefs-Steelers game, with Ian Eagle on play-by-play.

“I’m extremely proud of him and also slightly concerned he’s getting close to a lot of my records,” J.J. Watt said of his younger brother at the start of the broadcast.

Noah Eagle, Ian’s son, was on play-by-play for the Ravens-Texans game, with former NFL tight end Greg Olsen in the analyst seat.

Not a first This wasn’t the first time NFL games aired exclusively on a streaming service. The league’s Thursday night games are in their third season on Amazon Prime Video, Peacock streamed the Packers-Eagles game in São Paulo, Brazil, in Week 1 and Prime Video will stream a wild-card game. Also, the “Sunday Ticket” package moved to YouTube TV last year.

The largest audience for a streamed-exclusive NFL game was 23 million on Peacock for last season’s AFC wild-card game between the Miami Dolphins and the Chiefs.

Most Viewed

 
 
Entertainment

Demand for Japanese Content Booms Post 'Shogun'

The critical and commercial success of TV's 'Shogun' has helped spark a new wave of Japanese content being developed for global consumption. Michael Tran / AFP/File
The critical and commercial success of TV's 'Shogun' has helped spark a new wave of Japanese content being developed for global consumption. Michael Tran / AFP/File
TT
TT

Demand for Japanese Content Booms Post 'Shogun'

The critical and commercial success of TV's 'Shogun' has helped spark a new wave of Japanese content being developed for global consumption. Michael Tran / AFP/File
The critical and commercial success of TV's 'Shogun' has helped spark a new wave of Japanese content being developed for global consumption. Michael Tran / AFP/File

But "Shogun", based on the 1975 novel by Australian-British writer James Clavell, broke the mould when the period drama series -- mostly in Japanese and hailed for its authenticity -- won 18 Emmy awards in September.
Other recent Japanese works have also become worldwide hits.
Franco-US-Japanese show "Drops of God", based on a manga of the same name, won best drama series at the International Emmy Awards in November.
Netflix's 2023 adaptation of the manga superhit "One Piece" -- starring Mexican actor Inaki Godoy as the lead -- was hailed by viewers and critics alike and will return for a second season.
More adaptations of major manga and anime hits are in the works, including the superhero adventures of "My Hero Academia" and the ninja escapades of "Naruto".
"Demand from Western markets is clearly increasing," said Kaori Ikeda, managing director at TIFFCOM, the content trade fair affiliated with the Tokyo International Film Festival.
But Japanese companies lack "know-how" when it comes to things like negotiating rights, she told AFP.
So TIFFCOM has organized Tokyo Story Market, a space to facilitate networking and meetings between international producers and Japanese publishers.
'Whitewashing'
Foreign studios are also getting better at avoiding some of the pitfalls of the past, such as the 2017 film version of the manga "Ghost in the Shell" starring Scarlett Johansson.
Critics accused the movie, whose main actors except Takeshi Kitano were all non-Japanese, of "whitewashing".
Similarly, the 2017 supernatural thriller "Death Note" was panned for veering too far from the original manga.
"Manga authors are highly respected and fan communities are very vigilant," said Klaus Zimmermann, producer of "Drops of God".
His adaptation takes some liberties, such as starring a French actor as one of the main characters, but Zimmermann insists it was developed in collaboration with the authors of the original manga.
"It was about finding the spirit of the manga so as not to distort it," he told AFP.
Yuki Takamatsu, a rights negotiator at the manga's publishing house Kodansha, said the process of adapting "Drops of God" was "amazing".
"Everyone was open to tackling those challenges together... At every step, everyone was understanding about how we should do it," he said.
Past failures were in part down to publishers struggling to communicate their wishes to foreign producers, who in turn lacked a proper understanding of manga and anime, Takamatsu said.
"Back just 15, 20 years ago, most of the enquiries we received from those big studios were like, hey, I know 'Dragon Ball', do you have 'Dragon Ball' IP?" Takamatsu told AFP.
"But nowadays, especially since Covid, the producers in their 30s, 40s, they watch anime together with their kids on Netflix or Amazon" and then reach out, he said.
Japanese TV goes global
Japanese broadcasters have also become "better and better (at) presenting and marketing their content" abroad, said Makito Sugiyama, executive director at the Broadcast Program Export Association of Japan (BEAJ).
This includes their participation at global events such as MIPCOM in Cannes, an annual trade show for the television industry, Sugiyama said.
Japanese broadcasters have long had success selling show concepts abroad, like the one for "America's Funniest Home Videos", known in Britain as "You've Been Framed".
Now, some Japanese dramas are also finding a wider echo abroad.
Nippon TV's original drama "Mother" became a hit thanks in part to its Turkish remake, and has been broadcast in around 50 countries.
Western viewers have overcome their initial reluctance to watch series with Asian actors, believes Masaru Akiyama, chief executive of the BEAJ.
"They have got used to it, they don't care anymore. They want to see, they want to feel the stories."
"Shogun" was "a game changer for Japan," he added, and Ikeda agrees.
"That a samurai story with such attention to historical detail can become mainstream entertainment is proof of the potential" of Japanese content, she said.