Der Finanzprodukt Blog

Since the kick off in Russia on 14 June, viewers of the first round of the international football competition have already streamed more football action over the Akamai Intelligent Platform from Russia than they did during the whole of the Brazil tournament back in 2014. T

he 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 Brazil.

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 27th of June. This compares to a viewing peak of 5 million for the entire tournament in Brazil, 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 Brazil. In fact, 75% of all matches played in the first round in Russia have exceeded the peak bandwidth for the entire tournament in Brazil.

Below you’ll find more data from the first round of the Russian games. If you like, Akamai is happy to have a conversation with you on what the numbers mean.

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 Brazil, 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 Brazil 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 16th at an average peak bandwidth of 9.67Tbps