By John Saroff, CEO, Chartbeat
Pundits have treated two of Netflix’s most talked-about moves this year, ‘Skyscraper Live’ and its bid for Warner Bros., as separate stories. Alex Honnold’s feat is framed as content, the Warner Bros. bid as business.
But looking at them together, they form a coherent strategy rooted in customer acquisition, customer retention, and brand building.
Live events = customer acquisition
Netflix’s live event ambitions have been met with skepticism, especially after some early technical issues. But the logic behind the foray into the genre holds up.
Live events function as a high-intent acquisition channel.
Events create excitement and buzz. The highlights of Alex Honnold scaling Taipei 101 generated 4.5 million views on YouTube in their first two days, exceeding the early social performance of highlights from either NFL Conference Championship game. The formats are different, but the attention signal is clear.
As Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has said, events drive conversation and acquisition. Advertising is part of the upside, particularly as Netflix eyes traditional TV ad budgets, but the primary goal is subscriptions.
This is not a new idea. In 1994, Rupert Murdoch used the NFL to make Fox indispensable to affiliates. Fox became a national brand by leveraging sports.
But Netflix has an easier job than Fox. Fox had to lock in affiliates market by market. Netflix only has to convince individuals, one subscription at a time. Netflix is doing what all good companies do: it’s testing and iterating — Christmas NFL games here, Jake Paul there — to see what brings viewers in.
How the Warner Brothers deal fits in
Netflix’s all-cash bid for Warner Bros. is simple math.
Netflix’s latest offer for Warner Bros. is $82.7 billion cash. To refresh, the streamer spent about $18 billion on content in 2025 alone. So, for less than five years of content spend, Netflix is acquiring one of the largest and most-loved content libraries in Hollywood. The Warner library will bring incredible long-term value. It reduces churn, stabilizes engagement, and gives Netflix’s recommendation system a vastly larger surface to work with.
At a time when subscriber growth is slowing and churn is structurally rising, certainty matters. The $18 billion that Netflix spends on content this year will have unknown outcomes. There will be hits and there will be misses. But even the biggest hits will not be Casablanca, The Dark Knight, or The Wizard of Oz. $82.7 billion seems like a bargain.
Solidifying the Brand
Live events and Warner Bros. are complementary bets.
Netflix isn’t betting on any single show to secure its future. It’s betting that habit, built from moments that bring people in and libraries that keep them there, is the most defensible advantage in modern media. Netflix is onto that equation.
