Howard Stern Issued An Angry Warning To Netflix, Said They Have 'Hell To Pay'

When fans look back at Howard Stern's career, which made him very wealthy, it becomes clear that he has led a fascinating life. On the one hand, Howard has celebrity friends even after he convinced Donald Trump to talk about his prenup and Matt Lauer to publicly admit his secret crush. On the other hand, Howard "hurt" a major star, got beaten up over his comments, a celebrity held a grudge against him for years, and even Dolly Parton threatened to sue him.

Given Howard's complex history, it is always interesting when he weighs in on the biggest issues of the day. One example of that was the time that Howard warned Netflix they would have "hell to pay."

Why Howard Stern Warned Netflix They Would Have "Hell To Pay"

When Netflix started as a service that mailed DVDs to customers, there was no way to anticipate what a behemoth the company would become. Most notably, the company became a titan of the entertainment industry when it began streaming movies and TV shows.

In the years that followed that huge change for the company, the technology behind Netflix didn't change much for a long time. Then, Netflix took another leap when the company began streaming live broadcasts of events that its customers could watch in real time.

In 2024, Netflix memorably live-streamed the much-talked-about Jake Paul and Mike Tyson fight to its customers. After that memorable event, Howard Stern issued a serious warning to Netflix that made a lot of sense.

In November 2024, The Daily Mail published an article about how Howard reacted to the Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson fight.

As that article revealed, Howard went on his radio show and told Netflix that they needed to perfect live-streaming events if that was what they were going to do.

I don’t know how this stuff works, but you gotta make sure it works.

Howard wasn't done after making that comment as he went on to be more specific.

After the Jake Paul and Mike Tyson fight, Netflix had another much anticipated live-streaming event that had been announced. Netflix paid $150 million for the rights to live-stream two NFL games on Christmas Day 2024.

In January 2024, Variety reported that Netflix signed a huge live-streaming deal with the WWE. The company struck a deal to live-stream weekly episodes of WWE Monday Night Raw in America for $500 million. The deal also called for the WWE to live-stream all WWE shows, including major events like Wrestlemania, in several countries around the world.

As the aforementioned The Daily Mail article detailed, Howard warned Netflix of the consequences they would face if the NFL game had technical difficulties.

You f*** up people’s football, there is hell to pay. You better not.

There was a good reason for Howard Stern to issue a stark warning like that to Netflix at that time.

During Netflix's live-streaming of the event that featured the Mike Tyson and Jake Paul fight, the company memorably suffered from some really bad technical difficulties.

To be fair, some Netflix customers had a perfect experience when they watched the event featuring the Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul fight. However, there were many people who experienced a great deal of frustration as their screen froze and buffered endlessly.

As a November 2024 USA Today article detailed, the event froze at an infamous moment for many viewers.

Before the big fight started, there were cameras in Mike Tyson and Jake Paul's dressing rooms. As a result, a camera captured Mike walking around in his dressing room wearing thong underwear as he walked away from the camera. At that moment, many households had their screens freeze as the image of Mike Tyson's nearly bare backside remained on their screens.

As a part of The Daily Mail's article about Howard Stern warning Netflix to not let those technical issues happen again, they quoted the company's reaction to their streaming issues. The Daily Mail's article quoted Netflix's CTO Elizabeth Stone reacting to the problems with the Jake Paul and Mike Tyson event in an internal company message.

"We don't want to dismiss the poor experience of some members, and know we have room for improvement, but still consider this event a huge success."

To Netflix's CTO's point, the event was a mammoth success in terms of streaming numbers. An article on Netflix's website boasted that the Jake Paul and Mike Tyson event broke records for the company since it was watched by 108 million viewers worldwide.

Did Netflix Listen To Howard Stern's Warning?

On December 25th, 2024, Netflix live-streamed two NFL games and their pre-games to millions of viewers. After the company struggled with the Jake Paul and Mike Tyson event, observers were wondering if the NFL games would suffer in the same way.

Fortunately for NFL fans, a December 2024 article from The Sports Business Journal reported that Netflix's NFL games live-streamed without any technical issues.

That said, the article did reveal that Netflix had some issues that NFL fans saw. During the pregame show, the broadcast opened with ten seconds of silence that may have worried some observers.

Even though Netflix didn't have any streaming issues after Howard Stern warned them not to, it seems very unlikely that the radio show host played any role in that.

While many people listen to Howard's opinions, Netflix wouldn't have needed to be told not to have streaming issues. It also has to be noted that since the Jake Paul and Mike Tyson event, Netflix has live-streamed many events that also didn't have those brutal technical issues.

All things considered, it appears that Netflix worked out the kinks after things went wrong during the Mike Tyson and Jake Paul event. Hopefully, the company never has those kinds of streaming technical issues again in the future.