- Beyoncé will perform during Netflix's NFL Christmas broadcast.
- The game will be a major test of the streaming service's live programming abilities.
- It will also be pivotal for its advertising ambitions, which are expected to fuel future growth.
Netflix is bringing in the big — arguably, the biggest — guns next month during the streaming service's first-ever NFL broadcasts.
Music superstar Beyoncé will take the halftime stage when the Houston Texans play the Baltimore Ravens during Netflix's Christmas gameday. It will be the first time the Houston native has performed songs from the "Cowboy Carter" album live.
While the financial details have not been revealed, Beyoncé, who has partnered with Netflix before, may earn millions from the performance — significantly more than she made when she performed the Super Bowl halftime show in 2013.
Netflix, which is reportedly spending $75 million per game, has a lot riding on the NFL.
It has proven itself to be the streaming juggernaut. It has tens of millions more subscribers than any other service and generates billions of dollars in profit a year.
The Christmas NFL games — Netflix will air a Chiefs-Steelers match before the Texans-Ravens one — mark its biggest opportunity yet to transfer that dominance to live programming.
However, buffering, poor video quality, and other technical issues marred Netflix's most recent live attempt, the Mark Tyson-Jake Paul fight. Last year, the streaming service had to apologize to fans when a live "Love Is Blind" reunion episode went south.
Live events, which Netflix avoided for years, are a draw for advertisers — inventory is already sold out for Christmas Day's games — and an important part of the streamer's future growth plans.
Netflix launched its ad-supported tier two years ago, and it already has 70 million subscribers. But ad revenue hasn't kept up with that subscriber growth, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said in July.
The company has said it eventually sees advertising making up at least 10% of its revenue.
"Our goal over the next five or 10 years is to combine the best of digital advertising — so this is all of the things we know from that, targeting, personalization, relevance — with the best of TV advertising," Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said during last month's earnings call, adding that ad revenue is expected to "roughly double" in 2025.
Next year will be even more monumental for Netflix's live sports ambitions. It will kick off a $5 billion, 10-year deal with TKO to bring WWE to the streamer.
Amazon has already had success bringing the NFL into the streaming world. With its "Thursday Night Football," it offers advertisers a larger audience at lower prices than Netflix.
But insiders have said it's too soon to write off Netflix.
"The stock's at an all-time high," one told Business Insider in September. "It's the preeminent brand in streaming. Even if they're not the preeminent brand in advertising, they could be."