Photo by David Becker/Getty Images for Netflix © 2024
Last weekend, Netflix went live for a sports event for the second time. The Netflix Slam saw two Spanish tennis heavyweights face off in Las Vegas. Was the event a success for Netflix? Truthfully, we don’t quite know, but here are all the data points we’ve found for The Netflix Slam so far.
In case you missed it, Netflix went live on March 3rd in the evening in Las Vegas for an exhibition tennis match with Carlos Alcaraz and Rafael Nadal facing off against each other.
The live event was much smoother than Netflix’s first attempt, The Netflix Cup, which was plagued with technical problems and an incredibly messy format. This event, I thought at least, was well put together with slick graphics and compelling commentary. Plus, the stream held up well, albeit discovery within the app was still incredibly poor. You’d probably not know it was happening if you didn’t get it in your top banner spot. The stream was also available with a Spanish option, which wasn’t a toggle within the player but rather only available if you had your profile set to Spanish as the primary language. There’s room for improvement there, too.
But how well did The Netflix Slam do?
The Netflix Slam Missed Out On Global Top 10s
Every Tuesday, Netflix releases the top 40 titles of the past week, split into four categories: English-language TV series and movies and non-English series and films.
The biggest question we had was whether or not the special would feature, and it didn’t. As we noted in our top 10 report for the week, it would have qualified if it had a CVE (completed viewing equivalent) of 1.7 million.
Netflix dropped a press release on Monday following the event, but it notably didn’t feature any viewership numbers or “datedoces”.
The Netflix Cup also notably missed out on the global top 10 when it launched, but the Chris Rock Special featured between March 5th and March 12th, picking up 17.79 million hours watched. Per the Netflix Engagement Report covering hours watched between January and June 2023, that special was watched for 36.20 million hours.
The Netflix Cup and The Netflix Slam will qualify for future engagement reports. The former numbers will likely be released in June 2024, and the latter will probably not be released until December.
FlixPatrol Suggests Spain Was The Most Popular Region for The Live
The best data point for The Netflix Slam is undoubtedly FlixPatrol, the VOD measurement company that tracks over 800 streaming services in over 160 countries. In terms of Netflix data, they track the daily top 10s (the two lists you find in your Netflix accounts) for 89 countries.
Here’s a look at the breakdown of which countries saw The Netflix Slam pop up in their top 10s:
| Country | Points | Days in Top 10 |
|---|---|---|
| Argentina | 3 | 1 day |
| Bolivia | 1 | 1 day |
| Bulgaria | 6 | 2 days |
| Canada | 3 | 1 day |
| Costa Rica | 1 | 1 day |
| Ecuador | 1 | 1 day |
| Egypt | 6 | 1 day |
| France | 1 | 1 day |
| Israel | 1 | 1 day |
| Mexico | 3 | 1 day |
| Morocco | 1 | 1 day |
| Panama | 1 | 1 day |
| Paraguay | 4 | 1 day |
| Portugal | 4 | 1 day |
| Slovenia | 1 | 1 day |
| Spain | 20 | 3 days |
| United States | 4 | 1 day |
| Venezuela | 6 | 1 day |
Here’s how that looks on a heatmap:
Heatmap for The Netflix Slam on Netflix’s Top 10s
As you can probably tell, the live event performed best in Spain, which should come as no surprise given that the two competitors come from there.
What about external sources? There are not too many to look into, but we can see that Google searches spiked for both Nadal and Alcarez during and after the event.
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Netflix has many more sports and live events planned throughout 2024 and into 2025. Next is the comedy special from Katt Williams, which will air in early May 2024. We’ll see Netflix’s first boxing in Texas, with Mike Tyson and Jake Paul headlining that celebrity boxing ticket. Then, of course, you’ve got the WWE coming to Netflix throughout 2025 and beyond.
Did you enjoy The Netflix Slam? Let us know in the comments down below.
