More streaming in first round of Russian tournament than whole of Rio

Since kick off in Russia, viewers of the first round have already streamed more football action over the Akamai Intelligent Platform from Russia than they did during the whole of the Rio tournament. The record was surpassed on the tenth day of the tournament and, by the end of the first round, Akamai had streamed 65% more data than it did from start to finish in Rio.

Friday, 6th July 2018 Posted 6 years ago in by Phil Alsop

What’s driving this?

In part, the high volumes are being driven by large audiences: the number of concurrent streams peaked at 9.7 million as Mexico played Sweden at the same time as South Korea lined up against Germany on the 27^th of June. This compares to a viewing peak of 5 million for the entire tournament in Rio, which also occurred when two games were played at the same time (US-Germany and Portugal-Ghana). The peak bandwidth for streaming in the first round in Russia is 23.8Tbps, compared with 6.99Tpbs at Rio. In fact, 75% of all matches played in the first round in Russia have exceeded the peak bandwidth for the entire tournament in Rio.

Which teams are being streamed the most?

Germany, Mexico and Sweden are the three most streamed teams of the tournament so far. Germany has driven an average of 18.18Tbps average peak traffic during its matches, compared to 16.75Tbps for Mexico and 15.84Tbps for Sweden. Despite being a much smaller nation by population than the others – twelve times as many people live in Mexico as Sweden – the team is still driving viewing volumes around the world.*

Bottom of the table are Denmark (7.79Tbps), Australia (8.12Tbps) and Peru (8.23Tbps). However, Denmark, despite having the lowest average volume of viewing traffic for its matches, still comes in higher than the highest bandwidth peak of any game in Rio, which topped out at 6.99Tbps.

How does this compare to other events?

After two days, Akamai had delivered more data than it did in total from the South Africa event in 2010
After three days, Akamai had delivered more data than it did in total from the whole of the London event in 2012
After four days, Akamai had delivered more data than it did in total from the whole of the Sochi event in 2014
After ten days, Akamai had delivered more data than it did in total from the whole of the Rio event in 2014
The most-watched single streaming event was delivered over the Akamai network earlier this year, was for the final of a cricket tournament in India, where over 10.3 million viewers enjoyed the match online

*England ranks 16^th at an average peak bandwidth of 9.67Tbps