Yahoo reels in 15.2m live stream viewers to London NFL event
American football may have gained a toehold across the Atlantic after a set piece NFL game played at Wembley Stadium, London, was viewed by an impressive 15.2m people via a live stream hosted by Yahoo – enough to make it the largest live sporting event thus far.
England’s national stadium was the setting for a clash between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Buffallo Bills, with the former edging out their rivals 34-31. The real winner however is likely to be live streaming itself with analysts predicting that the success could open the floodgates to a new era of sports streaming.
Yahoo’s experiment saw it plump for an advertising-led free-to-view formula that saw it discard authentication and payment measures normally associated with such enterprises, choosing instead to focus on maximising audiences.
Adam Cahan, Yahoo’s senior vice president of video, design and emerging offerings told USA Today: “We very much looked at this as a trial ... that would then open the door for other conversations and additional opportunities. We’ve heard great reviews from our users, the NFL and advertisers. We’re really delighted.”
Whilst a total of 15.2m people generating 33.6m views between them logged onto the game at some point it is not known what the highest number of simultaneous viewers was.
A typical Monday evening NFL broadcast draws around 13.5m viewers on ESPN by way of comparison.