The two World Cup soccer matches on Thursday in the so-called
Group of Death bracket that includes the U.S. gobbled up more
Internet bandwidth than any other live sporting event, said Akamai
Technologies Inc.
The two games--the U.S. versus Germany and Portugal versus
Ghana--drew more than six terabits of data per second, suggesting
more than 3.5 million viewers tuned in over the Internet at the
same time, according to Akamai, which distributes video over the
Internet on behalf of most of the broadcasters with rights to the
FIFA world soccer governing body's feed.
"People's access to television was really limited, and they were
accessing it from work," said Bill Wheaton, head of Akamai's media
division. That meant many caught the game on a computer or even a
smartphone, sometimes streaming both at the same time.
More than a third of that streaming traffic went to North
America, Mr. Wheaton said, and about a quarter of the traffic went
to mobile devices.
It is hard to translate the figure into a certain number of
viewers because fans' streams ranged widely quality-wise, from
high-definition feeds for big screens to grainy clips for
phones.
Still, Thursday's games beat out other major events that
happened during the U.S. workday, including this year's Sochi
Olympics and the NCAA men's basketball tournament.
The U.S. lost 1-0 to Germany but still advanced into the
tournament's round of 16.
Write to Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com
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