Bela Bajaria is out as chief content officer at Netflix, and Peter Rice, the former Disney and Fox executive, takes over on October 26. The news broke Thursday afternoon in a report from Matthew Belloni at Puck and Netflix confirmed it by evening. Bajaria had been with the company since 2016 and held the top creative job since January 2023, overseeing a content budget of roughly $20 billion.
Belloni also reports that film chief Dan Lin is expected to follow, though that decision now belongs to Rice.
Why does a boxing site care? Because Bajaria was the executive on watch when Netflix decided live sports was the growth story. Netflix’s own statement on her exit credited her with the launches of live events and sports. WWE, the NFL on Christmas, Jake Paul against Mike Tyson, Canelo Alvarez against Terence Crawford, Anthony Joshua against Paul. Every one of those checks was written on her slate. The results were real but uneven. Paul against Tyson set records for a live streamed event. Canelo against Crawford drew 41.4 million viewers. They were also expensive one-offs, and Netflix never built a schedule around them.
The numbers behind the move are not a secret. Per Puck, engagement at Netflix grew just 2 percent in the first half of 2026. Nielsen had Netflix at 7.8 percent of connected TV viewing in July against 14.2 percent for YouTube. The stock is off more than 40 percent since the failed bid for Warner Bros. Co-CEO Ted Sarandos recently conceded the company is “not growing as fast as I want us to.” On Wednesday Netflix told staff it was laying off about 1,000 employees, roughly 6 percent of its workforce and its biggest cut since 2022. Third quarter earnings land Tuesday, October 20, so the questions will come fast.
Then there is Rice himself. He ran Fox Searchlight, chaired Walt Disney Television and managed the integration of thousands of Fox employees into Disney before Bob Chapek pushed him out in 2022. Reuters reports his remit includes series, films and live events across regions, so boxing is technically on his desk. But nothing in his career says live events, and Belloni’s read is that Netflix wants him for talent relationships and for the kind of merger integration that would matter if the company tries to buy another studio. That is not a profile that screams more fight nights.
Put that next to what happened nine days ago. On October 6, Skydance closed its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, the deal Netflix lost to David Ellison after a bidding war. “Today is a historic day, not just for Skydance but for our entire industry,” Ellison said in the announcement reported by Variety. Skydance now controls Paramount+ and HBO Max under one roof, and Paramount+ is the exclusive home of Zuffa Boxing in the United States, Canada and Latin America. That deal, reported by Front Office Sports to run five years, started with 12 cards in 2026, carries the option of CBS simulcasts, and was announced with plans to grow the number of shows in later years. Terms were never disclosed. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund was part of the consortium behind Ellison’s bid for Warner, and Sela, the PIF-owned entertainment company, is TKO’s partner in Zuffa.
So the company that beat Netflix for Warner is the same company airing the TKO boxing cards, and the money behind both sits in Riyadh. That is a very different seat at the table than the one Netflix bought with one-off event checks. Netflix rented boxing a few nights a year. Skydance owns a promoter’s full schedule.
And that schedule is filling in. Dan Rafael reported Wednesday on X, per sources, that Carlos Adames will make his Zuffa Boxing debut in a nontitle bout approved by the WBC in November in Riyadh, where Zuffa is planning one show in November and another in December. Rafael added the obvious caveat that both depend on the status of the war and unrest in the region. One fan’s reply under the post summed up the other side of it: “So Zuffa just finishing 2026 without another US show?! We love our fans.” That is a fair complaint from the people who buy tickets, but from a business standpoint the point stands. Zuffa has a broadcaster, a backer and a calendar. Netflix this week has a new boss who has never run a fight.
Wall Street is still working out the price Skydance paid. Variety reported Thursday that Skydance closed the day with a market cap of about $36.6 billion, against the $77.7 billion Warner Bros. Discovery and roughly $11 billion Paramount were worth on October 5, the last day they traded separately. Part of Wednesday’s 24 percent drop was mechanical, tied to 471 million warrants beginning to trade on their own, and the combined company is carrying around $80 billion in net debt. Ellison has promised $6 billion in annualized cost savings over three years. None of that touches the boxing deal, which is a rounding error on a balance sheet that size, and if anything a company hunting for growth has more reason to lean on a live product that already works, not less.
Then there is DAZN, which spent years being written off and is now the one talking expansion. DAZN never left boxing the way the linear networks did. It carries Matchroom, Golden Boy and Queensberry volume week in and week out, and it has quietly built a US foothold through local rights and distribution deals with NBA, NHL and MLB teams that lost their regional sports networks. Speaking at Leaders Week London last week, chief executive Shay Segev called those local deals a first step toward national US rights, telling the room, per SportsPro, “Ideally we want to do more things like the Fifa Club World Cup.” DAZN cut its 2024 pre-tax loss to £935.6 million from £1.37 billion a year earlier and reported it had not needed fresh capital from Access Industries in 2025, with Segev targeting profitability and floating an IPO, according to Broadband TV News.
Three streamers, three directions in one month. Skydance consolidating with the Zuffa cards in the building and two more on the books. DAZN, the streamer that never left boxing, talking about national rights and profitability. Netflix, the one that was supposed to be the big new money, firing its content chief over flat engagement.
What Netflix still has on the calendar is the question, and it is not nothing. Joshua against Tyson Fury is confirmed for Friday, December 11 at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, promoted by Turki Alalshikh’s The Ring with Dana White involved, streaming live on Netflix worldwide. Around 80,000 tickets sold out in an hour with more than 500,000 people in the queue, at prices from £88.50 to £13,128. Lance Pugmire reported that two people in the talks say Netflix “wants” a Manny Pacquiao against Shakur Stevenson doubleheader on the same card. Nobody should read Thursday as Netflix walking away from a fight that big. The question is what comes after it. Eddie Hearn has said the quiet part out loud on how many of these there will be: “Netflix are only going to do so many fights.”
Those are Riyadh Season and MVP checks. They were approved by an executive who no longer works there. Whether Rice, who is being brought in for talent relationships and merger integration rather than for live events, keeps writing them is now an open question for every promoter who built a 2027 plan around Netflix money.
Cardiff will be a huge night and Netflix will get its number. Then the tourist has a new driver, and the two streamers that actually committed to boxing are still here.
