The role and importance of sports to Netflix was hardly in debate anymore, but the power of the programming was fully confirmed in the company’s fourth-quarter earnings.

The streaming giant said late Tuesday that it now has 301.6 million global subscribers, up from 282.7 million in October, and that it generated a 16% lift in revenue to $10.2 billion. Net income roughly doubled from the comparable period in 2023 to nearly $1.9 billion. The subscriber increase, more than double what analysts expected, is the single-largest quarterly gain in company history. 

Netflix’s fiscal fourth quarter was highlighted by two major events, both in sports: its entry into live NFL games with a Christmas Day doubleheader, averaging more than 24 million average viewers, according to Nielsen data, and a Jake Paul–Mike Tyson boxing match that, according to somewhat-debated internal metrics, attracted more than 60 million households around the world. 

Both were historic for Netflix, as the boxing match is the company’s most-streamed sporting event ever, while the Christmas Day NFL showcase still represents the league’s most-streamed games—even beating a recent playoff matchup shown on Amazon. 

Now into 2025, the Netflix sports push continues, particularly with the start of live streaming of WWE’s Raw and the recent acquisition of rights to the FIFA Women’s World Cup. 

“We’re not focusing on acquiring rights to large regular-season sports packages; rather, our live strategy is all about delivering can’t-miss, special-event programming,” Netflix said in a letter to shareholders. “Although our live programming will likely be a small percentage of our total view hours and content expense, we think the eventized nature will result in outsized value to both our members and our business.”

This quarterly report is set to be the last from Netflix in which it will disclose subscriber totals, opting instead to focus on other metrics, and reporting updated subscriber counts as key milestones are crossed. Even without those particular totals each quarter, though, the company remains a dominant force in streaming. The company also rolled out price increases across most of its plans, with individual tiers generally rising by $1 to $2.50 per month.

Investors cheered the latest results, sending Netflix stock up by more than 13% in after-hours trading late Tuesday. The company’s shares have already soared by nearly 80% in the last year.

Plenty of drama in both of Sunday’s NFL divisional-round playoff games was not enough to prevent an extension of the league’s downward slide in its viewership. 

The evening AFC matchup on CBS between the Ravens and Bills—a high-octane clash between NFL MVP favorites Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, the most-anticipated game of the weekend, and won by Buffalo 27–25—drew an average of 42.2 million, according to preliminary data, down 16% from the comparable game last year. The game was the worst-performing divisional playoff contest in that slot since 2021. 

This game, like many others in the NFL this season, went up against a rather difficult comparison from 2023, as last year’s divisional matchup in the same window, between the Chiefs and Bills, drew an average of 50.4 million, setting a record as the most-watched NFL divisional playoff game ever. Even with the year-over-over decline, the Ravens-Bills game established a new mark as the league’s most-watched contest of the 2024 season—though that’s now poised to be topped by the upcoming conference title games Sunday.

The Sunday afternoon game between the Rams and Eagles on NBC, meanwhile, posted a total audience delivery of 37.8 million viewers, down 6% from a comparable 40.4 million for a Buccaneers-Lions game in that slot last year. 

The game, won by the Eagles 28–22, still represented the fourth-best divisional playoff rating in NBC history, dating to Nielsen’s 1988 introduction of its People Meter measurement system and covering 33 such games on the network over that time. 

The Sunday results followed prior viewership attrition seen during the NFL’s regular season, the wild-card round, and earlier in the divisional playoff round.