In the 1980s, Mike Tyson was not only a fierce and multi-champion boxer, he was also a media attraction. Many people stopped in front of the TV waiting for hours on end to watch him in action for just a few minutes — the time it took him to knock out his unfortunate opponent, almost always with Luciano do Valle’s delicious narration.
Eight hundred years later, this humble scribe found himself in front of the television waiting once again to see a Tyson fight. But it wasn’t really sport, it was a celebrity fight. And it wasn’t on Band, it was on Netflix, so I was able to sleep peacefully and watch the pseudo-duel the next day, with my finger on the accelerator on the remote control.
I was unsure whether I would find the news related to this fight in the Sports section or on F5, the celebrity news website of Sheet —it would be fairer on F5, I imagine. After all, it was a fight between a 27-year-old YouTuber and a 58-year-old man.
And why submit to the grotesque spectacle? Money, of course. Celebrity fights nowadays give much more visibility and attract more sponsors than featherweight, flyweight or heavyweight fights. For Saturday’s joke, Jake Paul earned around US$40 million; Tyson, $20 million, not bad.
In the wonderful world of streaming, sport, who would have thought, has become as important or even more important than films and series. How many times will someone want to replay “Game of Thrones” or “Round 6”?
With the game from your favorite championship, or the Champions League, fun is guaranteed every year, always with new episodes.
And the giant Netflix came after its peers Max (owner of Champions), Amazon Prime Video (shows NBA games) and Disney (which includes all ESPN programming). Not to mention Globo/Globoplay, which still owns the main national championships, not just football.
So the network is shooting everywhere, including celebrity fights. For next year, the company has already announced an investment of US$5 billion (that’s right) to be entitled to a weekly WWE night, what the old-timers (me) called telequete.
It’s a perfect program, as it mixes reality show, risky stunts, title fights and lots of drama — always the good guy takes the microphone, tells a story, is interrupted by a villain and they end up slapping each other in the ring, with a fight scheduled for the week following.
It’s no surprise that many WWE stars end up in Hollywood. Dave Bautista, the strongman from “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Dune”, for example, left there. The biggest WWE actor of the moment is Dwayne Johnson, who also goes by the nickname The Rock.
Protagonist and co-producer of the two recent “Jumanji” and “Red Alert” (from Netflix), The Rock curiously returned to the ring and created drama-rematches with current fighters. All after purchasing Netflix. Coincidence?
While WWE doesn’t arrive, the streaming platform has already taken another sure shot: it bought the rights to a Christmas broadcast of the NFL, American football — finally, a real sport, and with an increasingly universal reach.
One day after Mike Tyson’s pseudo-fight, Beyoncé was already dominating the ex-Twitter’s most talked about topics. Reason? Netflix announced the pop queen as the attraction of the halftime show of the Christmas game. Wow, but does a Christmas game have a halftime show? Paying well, what’s wrong?
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