On Friday night, the most anticipated boxing match of the year took place at the Kaseya Center in Miami, and live on Netflix. The action in the ring, as influencer-turned-Make-a-Wish fighter Jake Paul did his best to evade former heavyweight champ Anthony Joshua, was mostly plodding and always one-sided. The Kaseya Center crowd booed several times in want of action. Joshua’s K.O. win mercifully put an end to the dull spectacle in the sixth. Paul received a twice-broken jaw for his efforts.

The scene in the arena was far more engaging, however. While it didn’t pack the oomph of Paul’s previous Netflix pageant against Mike Tyson, the crowd provided a big-event atmosphere. A little more than an hour before Paul and Joshua entered the ring, the arena’s V.I.P. section was packed with crossover stars and influencers: rappers (Rick Ross, Timbaland, and Young Thug), actors (Benny Safdie and Matt Rife), comics (Bert Kreischer), etcetera. And Netflix’s chief content officer, Bela Bajaria, held court in the middle of it all.

This, of course, was the Netflix idyll: the chance to own the culture for a night or two. In this scenario, the quality of the contest is a secondary concern. To wit: Netflix’s two Christmas Day NFL games feature three teams that have already been eliminated from playoff contention. But these are merely minor inconveniences within the streamer’s larger eventization strategy, which also includes dropping three new episodes of Stranger Things that same day, in advance of the two-hour series finale on December 31.

During halftime of the late-afternoon Lions–Vikings game, the singing voices of Huntrix will perform alongside country singer Lainey Wilson and Snoop Dogg—which, if recent history is a guide, will attract many more viewers than the game itself. (Note for readers without young children: Huntrix is the fictional K-pop trio from Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters, the streamer’s most-watched original film ever.) This is a tried-and-true strategy at this point. Last year, Beyoncé’s halftime show in the Christmas Day Ravens–Texas blowout helped set viewership records. “Our C.E.O., Ted Sarandos, says it’s an event strategy more than a sports strategy,” Netflix vice president of sports Gabe Spitzer told me on the Varsity podcast last week. “In the live sports space, it’s really about finding events that are going to create watercooler conversations and bring people from around the world to want to click on Netflix and watch it.”

Netflix’s eventizing has been more successful with boxing than other sports, mainly because of its international appeal. Roughly 45 percent of Netflix’s boxing audience comes from outside the U.S., compared to around 10-15 percent for NFL games. “The U.S. is a mature market,” Spitzer told me. “But when you can do it in an eventized way, and you can surprise people, … I do think there’s this sense of only on Netflix, in some ways.” Spitzer also referenced Beyoncé bringing out surprise guests Post Malone and Shaboozey last Christmas. “We saw that with last November’s Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight,” Spitzer said. “It felt like the world came together to watch that fight on Netflix, and only on Netflix. We see the power of what the best and biggest live sports events can do.” If those live events also offer a platform to further synergize your animated global juggernaut ahead of the Oscars or pump the stock of your teen horror sensation before its swan song: Merry Christmas.

During our conversation, Spitzer also offered an inside look at the streamer’s sports documentary strategy. Despite the common belief that the format’s post-Last Dance boom days are fading, he revealed that Netflix saw upward of 871 million hours of sports doc viewing in the past year. Still, many critics argue (correctly) that the genre has become oversaturated, with too many heavily promoted “all-access” docs feeling like little more than live-action press releases.

I asked him how Netflix decides which projects to pursue. “For us, it’s really about access and authenticity,” Spitzer said. “How can we surprise viewers? How are we letting them in, in ways that they can’t just get on social media or other places? I do think we’ve reached a tipping point in the follow-doc genre, where maybe there are too many of them right now, so we have to be a bit pickier in terms of the ones we’re doing. … There are more incredible docs coming: We have Hulk Hogan; we have Mike Tyson; we have Deion Sanders; so there’s plenty of good ones that are still out there.”

Meanwhile, many assumed streamers would pounce on MLB.TV out-of-market rights after ESPN’s surprising decision in February to opt out of its deal. But that baseball package, at least for now, doesn’t neatly align with Netflix’s sports strategy. MLB is fundamentally a volume play—and while Netflix appears open to targeted volume, indiscriminate scale isn’t central to its rights thesis.

“Obviously, there’s an added cost for a subscription to MLB. It’s not in our model right now,” Spitzer said. “We have multiple tiers of pricing for a Netflix subscription, but what we want is to give the audience that choice. When they come in, they’re going to be able to watch whatever they want, whenever they want—whether you have the ads tier or the premium tier. And I think we’ve proven with that, we can bring in a larger audience and create great, entertaining programming.”

A Christmas story: “In 2010, your podcast guest Gabe Spitzer was an emerging producer at HBO Sports. We signed with the NHL to do an all-access series following the two Winter Classic teams in the lead-up to the outdoor showdown. It was the first time an American pro sports league permitted a non-league-owned entity to embed with a team during the regular season. Well, Gabe was assigned to the Penguins and spent more than a month embedded with them. As Christmas approached, the head coach, Dan Bylsma, asked the HBO crew about their Christmas plans. When Gabe told him that they had no plans, Coach Bylsma invited Gabe and the HBO Sports crew to Christmas dinner at his house. You gotta love hockey.” —An HBO Sports old-timer

On the Indiana Bears: “I have to push back on your idea that Kevin Warren’s Northwest Indiana mention [as a site for a future stadium] is purely headline bait. Neither of the New York City NFL teams actually plays in New York; they share a stadium in New Jersey. The Washington Commanders played D.C., Virginia, and Maryland against each other for their stadium deal, and the Kansas City Chiefs are currently doing the same with Kansas and Missouri. Leveraging adjacent jurisdictions is standard practice in NFL stadium negotiations. Warren may have tipped his hand later than ideal, but the playbook itself is hardly unique.” —A media executive

On the Great White North: “Did you really ask Brian Windhorst if it’s hard to develop stars in Minnesota? Prince. Bob Dylan. Paul Bunyan. Roger Maris. The Hanson Brothers from Slapshot. Vince Vaughn. Brandon and Brenda Walsh from 90210. John Madden. Spam. Wouldn’t surprise me if the place for which you pen your detritus is actually named after Kirby Puckett. Hey, Ourand, here’s some Minnesota nice for you: Would you please be so kind as to go grin-fuck yourself. Ope, meant to say happy holidays. You betcha.” —A typical Minnesotan

Have a great holiday week. I’ll see you back here on Monday.

John