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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)
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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.

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Michael Madsen, ‘Reservoir Dogs’ and ‘Kill Bill’ Star, Dies at 67

Actor Michael Madsen appears at the premiere of "The Hateful Eight" in Los Angeles on Dec. 7, 2015. (AP)
Actor Michael Madsen appears at the premiere of "The Hateful Eight" in Los Angeles on Dec. 7, 2015. (AP)
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Michael Madsen, ‘Reservoir Dogs’ and ‘Kill Bill’ Star, Dies at 67

Actor Michael Madsen appears at the premiere of "The Hateful Eight" in Los Angeles on Dec. 7, 2015. (AP)
Actor Michael Madsen appears at the premiere of "The Hateful Eight" in Los Angeles on Dec. 7, 2015. (AP)

Michael Madsen, the actor best known for his coolly menacing, steely-eyed, often sadistic characters in the films of Quentin Tarantino including "Reservoir Dogs" and "Kill Bill: Vol. 2," has died.

Madsen was found unresponsive in his home in Malibu, California, on Thursday morning and pronounced dead, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Watch Commander Christopher Jauregui said. He is believed to have died of natural causes and authorities do not suspect any foul play was involved. Madsen's manager Ron Smith said cardiac arrest was the apparent cause. He was 67.

Madsen’s career spanned more than 300 credits stretching back to the early 1980s, many in low-budget and independent films. He often played low-level thugs, gangsters and shady cops in small roles. Tarantino would use that identity, but make him a main character.

His torture of a captured police officer in Tarantino's 1992 directorial debut "Reservoir Dogs," in which Madsen's black-suited bank robber Vic "Mr. Blonde" Vega severs the man's ear while dancing to Stealers Wheel’s "Stuck in the Middle with You" was an early career-defining moment for both director and actor.

He would become a Tarantino regular. He had a small role as the cowboy-hatted desert dweller Budd, a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, in 2003's "Kill Bill: Vol. 1," then a starring role the following year in the sequel, in which he battles with Uma Thurman's protagonist The Bride and buries her alive.

Madsen also appeared in Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight" and "Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood." He was an alternate choice to play the hit man role that revived John Travolta's career in 1994's "Pulp Fiction." The character, Vincent Vega, is the brother of Madsen's "Reservoir Dogs" robber in Tarantino's cinematic universe.

His sister, Oscar-nominated "Sideways" actor Virginia Madsen, was among those paying him tribute on Thursday.

"He was thunder and velvet. Mischief wrapped in tenderness. A poet disguised as an outlaw. A father, a son, a brother—etched in contradiction, tempered by love that left its mark," she said in a statement. "I’ll miss our inside jokes, the sudden laughter, the sound of him. I’ll miss the boy he was before the legend. I miss my big brother."

His "Hateful Eight" co-star and fellow Tarantino favorite Walton Goggins celebrated him on Instagram.

"Michael Madsen... this man... this artist... this poet... this rascal..." Goggins wrote. "Aura like no one else. Ain’t enough words so I’ll just say this.... I love you buddy. A H8TER forever."

James Woods, Madsen's co-star in two films, wrote on X, "I was always touched by his sweet nature and generosity, the absolute opposite of the ‘tough guys’ he portrayed so brilliantly."

Madsen was born in Chicago to a family of three children.

He performed on stage with the city's Steppenwolf Theatre Company alongside actors including John Malkovich.

During a handprint ceremony at the TCL Chinese Theatre in November 2020, Madsen reflected on his first visit to Hollywood in the early 1980s.

"I got out and I walked around and I looked and I wondered if there were someday some way that that was going to be a part of me. And I didn’t know because I didn’t know what I was going to do at that point with myself," he said. "I could have been a bricklayer. I could have been an architect. I could have been a garbage man. I could have been nothing. But I got lucky. I got lucky as an actor."

His first film role of any significance was in the 1983 hacker thriller "WarGames" with Matthew Broderick. The following year he played pro baseball player Bump Bailey alongside Robert Redford in "The Natural."

He spent much of the rest of the 1980s doing one-off guest roles on television dramas including "Miami Vice" and "Quantum Leap."

1991 would bring a career boost with roles in "The Doors," where he played a buddy of Val Kilmer's Jim Morrison, and "Thelma and Louise" where he played the boyfriend of Susan Sarandon's Louise.

Then would come "Reservoir Dogs."

In 1995, he played a black ops mercenary in the sci-fi thriller "Species" and in 1997 he was third billed after Al Pacino and Johnny Depp as a member of a crew of gangsters in "Donnie Brasco."

He occasionally played against type. In the 1993 family orca adventure "Free Willy" he was the foster father to the orphan protagonist.

Madsen would return to smaller roles but worked constantly in the final two decades of his career.

Madsen had six children. He had struggled in recent years after the 2022 death of one of his sons, Hudson.

"Losing a child is the hardest and most painful experience that can happen in this world," Madsen said in an Instagram post last year.

He said the loss put a strain on his marriage to third wife, DeAnna Madsen. He was arrested on suspicion of domestic battery last year, but was not charged. He filed for divorce, but asked that the filing be dismissed just weeks later.

He had previously been arrested twice on suspicion of DUI, most recently in 2019, when he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor.

"In the last two years Michael Madsen has been doing some incredible work with independent film including upcoming feature films ‘Resurrection Road,’ ‘Concessions and ’Cookbook for Southern Housewives,' and was really looking forward to this next chapter in his life," his managers Smith and Susan Ferris and publicist Liz Rodriguez said in a statement. "Michael was also preparing to release a new book called ‘Tears For My Father: Outlaw Thoughts and Poems’ currently being edited."

They added that he "was one of Hollywood’s most iconic actors, who will be missed by many."