Yahoo garners big viewership for Internet-only Jaguars-Bills NFL broadcast


Details

Michelle Clancy

| 27 October 2015





Yahoo's live-stream-only broadcast of the Jacksonville Jaguars vs. the Buffalo Bills NFL game from Wembley Stadium in London drew roughly eight million viewers.


Yahoo Live accounted for 7% of cacheable traffic in some North American ISP networks, and peaked at 12% of broadband traffic during the fourth quarter, according to data from Qwilt, which supported the live stream.

The mix of client devices during the game remained consistent with a client profile for a fixed line, broadband ISP in North America, with Windows PC clients dominating the mix at 57% followed by Apple iOS – Mac, iPhone, iPad (26%) – and Android (11%).

This volume of traffic is even more impressive when one considers the fact that the game, played in London, aired early on Sunday morning in the US (9.30am ET / 6.30am PT).

"Along the journey of an industry transformation from broadcast TV to Internet TV, Yahoo's live streaming of today's NFL game in London was a seminal event," said Dan Sahar, Qwilt's co-founder. "The NFL and Yahoo teamed up to make a powerful statement during this event. Namely, that streaming could reliably serve as the only means by which many viewers would watch the game — this was the first NFL game that was primarily an Internet TV event. Other than a local TV broadcast in the hometown markets of Buffalo, NY and Jacksonville, Florida, the only access to this regular season NFL game was through a live stream from Yahoo."

Yahoo! had previously reported that all ad inventory was sold out for the game well ahead of the kick off.