HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — A Florida man has filed a $50 million class action lawsuit against Netflix, which was obtained by WFAA, alleging breach of contract after subscribers experienced buffering issues during the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson event.
Ronald "Blue" Denton filed the lawsuit on Monday, three days after the live fight event, where he claims 97,000 reports had been received by 9:46 p.m. ET (8:46 p.m. CT). The live event on Netflix started at 8 p.m. ET (7 p.m. CT). Buffering issues were widely reported by the public on X, formerly known as Twitter, WFAA previously reported.
The fight was available for anyone with a Netflix subscription, and there was not an extra pay-per-view charge to view the live event.
The lawsuit states viewers "were faced with legendary problems, including: no access, streaming glitches, and buffering issues."
Netflix and Most Valuable Promotions, the fight promoter that Paul co-owns, touted the fight as a success both in its record-breaking gate and streaming statistics. According to MVP, 60 million households tuned in live night to watch the main event and nearly 50 million watched Katie Taylor vs. Amanda Serrano 2, etching them as the most-watched professional women's sporting event in U.S. history.
"60 million Americans were hyped to see 'Iron' Mike Tyson, 'The Baddest Man on the Planet' versus YouTuber-turned-prizefighter Jake Paul. What they saw was 'The Baddest Streaming on the Planet'," the lawsuit stated.
The lawsuit claims Netflix admitted "many technical challenges" arose from the "stability of the stream" for the "majority of viewers" but claimed they were "tackled brilliantly."
According to the lawsuit, NBC Chicago contacted Netflix for a response to the troubles and were told, in part, "nothing to comment on at this time."
Denton has filed the class-action lawsuit on behalf of Netflix subscribers in the United States, seeking unspecified damages.
WFAA has reached out to Netflix and Most Valuable Promotions for comment on the lawsuit. We will update this story when we get a response.
Netflix will stream an NFL debut doubleheader on Christmas with games between the Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans.
ESPN NFL reporter Dan Graziano reported Wednesday that the league has been assured that buffering won't be an issue for the Christmas Day games.
"The NFL did check in with Netflix following the Tyson-Paul fight to ask about the problems and assess the likelihood that they could repeat themselves on Christmas. Netflix said the fight reached 60 million homes, and apparently part of the explanation to the league was that the unprecedented scale for them of broadcasting a live sporting event contributed to some of the challenges they faced," Graziano reported. "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."
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