Netflix (NFLX) announces its launch into live sports with the debut of the "Netflix Cup" golf tournament on November 14. Yahoo Finance’s Josh Schafer weighs in on whether this tournament is an appealing enough sporting event to draw in viewers or just a live entertainment event put on by the streamer.

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Video Transcript

AKIKO FUJITA: Well, Netflix is making its way into live sports, announcing the Netflix Cup-- an eight hole golf tournament that will stream live on November 14. Josh Schafer is excited about this one. He's on the beat for us on the streaming giant. Josh, I mean, we spent the last few years talking about how Netflix would never get into live sports, right?

JOSH SCHAFER: Yeah, Akiko. And I mean-- Akiko, I think it's important to highlight here that, is it really live sports? Or is it more, like, live entertainment? I mean, we're not really talking about a competitive sporting event here. I think it's a little bit more on that entertainment side when you have pro golfers playing with other athletes that play in a different sport in F1 racers.

But I think it makes sense for Netflix for two reasons. One, we talk a lot about Netflix's ability to bring some of their characters to life with maybe, like, "Stranger Things" merch or go that Disney route with being able to create their shows and their experiences and bring them in person to people and bring them to fans. This is happening the week that F1 is in Las Vegas. And this event is happening in Las Vegas.

So for fans to be able to engage with their favorite "Drive to Survive" characters, I think, is something to think about here. A golf course is much more of a friendly manner for people to basically banter and talk, right? That's what golfers love about golf courses, and I think that's what they're trying to bring out here.

They mic up some of these F1 drivers and have them bring out maybe a little bit more personality. And the second thing is if Netflix were ever going to actually go to live sports, I'd rather test out livestreaming on a golf event that, as we just highlighted, isn't really that big of a major sporting event than testing it out on, say, an MLB game, an NBA game, an NFL game that people are live betting on and all those different things going on.

Because we know from watching Apple launch baseball and these other streamers starting to get into live sports, it's challenging to stream live sports, right, and bring a lot of people on to a platform. Netflix even had trouble, I believe, with their Chris Rock special at one point with the amount of people coming onto the platform. So I think you might just see them sort of testing things out too and thinking, what if we did stream real live sports, competitive live sports, professional live sports? What would that look like? Well, let's test it out with F1 and some fun golf.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: I mean, it's certainly a way to dip your toe without risking it being, as you mentioned, an NFL game or something else. But what do you think this is going to tell us about the demographics that Netflix could be appealing to by dipping its toe in this way and building on some of the existing programming that it has?

JOSH SCHAFER: Yeah, Rachelle, I mean, you definitely would think that this would potentially hedge to a younger fan base. Right? We know that F1 has been very successful with younger fans. And this really, to me, has more of an F1 appeal than it has a PGA TOUR professional golfer fan appeal.

I think it'd be more fun to see these drivers, and hear them talk, and be mic'd up during a golf event than necessarily see the golfers playing a less serious golf event. But I think it'll be interesting to just see who does watch it. How big is the audience? We're talking Tuesday at 6:00 PM Eastern here.

I mean, maybe if I leave the office early enough, I'm going to check it out. But I don't know if I'm a watcher of this. Akiko, Rachelle, are you guys watching this?

AKIKO FUJITA: I'm not watching it.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: I think I might.

AKIKO FUJITA: I got too much sports to watch, Josh. This is not one of them.

JOSH SCHAFER: I agree. Yeah, I'd rather watch a more serious event, I think. But, Rachelle, I know you're an F1 fan-- I can see how it's fun.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: And plus, all my other teams are doing terribly this season. So I'm like, why not? Let me throw my hat in here.

[LAUGHTER]

AKIKO FUJITA: All right. We'll stay tuned. By the way, we should mention Netflix reporting earnings too. So we'll see if that question pops up. Josh Schafer, as always, thanks so much for that.