Beyoncé’s Christmas halftime show draws backlash from the sports world

She surprised fans by bringing out Shaboozey to sing “Sweet Honey Buckiin,” and Post Malone joined her for “Levii’s Jeans.” The action on the field did not live up to expectations as the NFL featured four of the AFC’s top five teams. Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce exposed a fumble in Pittsburgh’s defense during Kansas City’s 29-10 rout in Game 1. The show itself went very well.

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

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

She surprised fans by bringing out Shaboozey to sing “Sweet Honey Buckiin,” and Post Malone joined her for “Levii’s Jeans.”

The action on the field did not live up to expectations as the NFL featured four of the AFC’s top five teams.

Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce exposed a fumble in Pittsburgh’s defense during Kansas City’s 29-10 rout in Game 1.

The broadcast itself did very well, quickly becoming the second most popular live show on Netflix to date, according to NFL Media.

Lamar Jackson and the Ravens led CJ Stroud and the Texans 17-2 at halftime before Beyoncé stole the show. Baltimore finished with a 31-2 run, with Jackson resting most of the fourth quarter.

Mariah Carey opened the football doubleheader with a recorded rendition of “All I Want for Christmas is You,” and then the two-time defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs topped the Steelers to earn the No. 1 seed in AFC.

There were no signs of major streaming issues during the game, after Netflix experienced minor glitches at the start of the pre-game show. The show opened with about 10 seconds of silence as it appeared that studio host Kay Adams’ microphone was not on.

Beyoncé’s live performance at NRG Stadium was supposed to be the streaming giant’s biggest test, 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 a score as the Chiefs (15-1) grabbed a first-round lead and home field advantage from home throughout the AFC playoffs. The Steelers (10-6) have lost three straight games and may have to settle for a wild-card spot.

Jackson threw two touchdown passes and ran for a score, and Derrick Henry had 147 yards rushing and a TD to help the Ravens (11-5) move into first place in the AFC North by one game of Pittsburgh.

Netflix agreed to a three-year deal in May to stream Christmas 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 a distribution channel has 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 November 14. The showdown 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 reported problems with interruptions 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 airing, and viewers in nearly 200 countries watched the first game. Before Ravens-Texans kickoff, Netflix reported that it eclipsed its peak in concurrent viewers of any Christmas in the last four years.

The NFL played its first games on a Wednesday since the Steelers and Ravens were forced to play on December 2, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The only other time the league has 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 plethora of commercials. The first trailer for “Happy Gilmore 2” has been released ahead of the launch. Adam Sandler returned as Happy Gilmore for the sports comedy that hits the streaming service in 2025. Travis Kelce was also featured in a trailer filled with celebrity cameos, including Bad Bunny and Kid Cudi.

The 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 December 25 from 1972-1988 and moved its entire slate of games to Saturday if Christmas fell on a Sunday. Since 1989, there have been 30 games on Christmas Day, never more than three on that day. But the NFL went out of its way to schedule two games Wednesday to accommodate its $150 million deal with Netflix.

Broadcast teams

JJ Watt, three-time AP Defensive Player of the Year and brother of four-time Steelers All-Pro TJ Watt, and former NFL wide receiver Nate Burleson shared analyst duties for the Chiefs-Steelers game, with Ian Eagle in the game -pantomime.

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

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

It’s not a premiere

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

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

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AP Sports Writer Joe Reedy contributed to this report.

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL