Here are the main stats from Yahoo’s historic stream of the Jaguars vs. Bills game in London on Sunday.
- 15.2 million unique viewers (This is just a little less than Thursday Night Football (17.6M) but more than the NFL sees on average for Monday Night Football (13.5M) If it were a TV audience it would have been one of the Top 10 audiences for all programs for the week in the United States)
- 33.6 million video streams
- Over 460 million total minutes of video consumed
- Roughly 33% of audience was international (that’s over 5 million viewers outside the United States)
From the NFL’s perspective they are pleased that they took a game that would have had a relatively small TV audience in the United States and by distributing it digitally via Yahoo, they attracted a larger global audience and provided more hype for the otherwise overlooked game. These numbers are also encouraging when considering that the game was played at 9:30am Eastern time on a Sunday morning. Which is not a traditional premier slot for the typical American audience.
Additionally, the 15.2 million audience number will likely add 1 million more total views once the numbers for the Jacksonville, Buffalo, London and Chinese digital markets are confirmed.
Over 185 countries worldwide tuned in for the game online and 30 brands partnered with Yahoo to sponsor this landmark digital event. Which is the crucial component of the whole production. Sponsors will drive this digital adoption and give the possibility of many more games to be provided for free online.
“It’s been a great opportunity to partner with the NFL and deliver a truly exceptional global live streaming experience for our users,” said Adam Cahan, Yahoo’s SVP of Product and Engineering in a press release. “We’re seeing a dramatic shift in the industry as audiences’ primary video watching moves away from TV. We were thrilled to join the NFL in setting a new standard for sports programming for our users and advertisers.”
“We’re thrilled with the results of our initial step distributing an NFL game to a worldwide audience and with the work of our partner, Yahoo,” said Hans Schroeder, Senior Vice President, Media Strategy, Business Development & Sales for the NFL. “We are incredibly excited by the fact that we took a game that would have been viewed by a relatively limited television audience in the United States and by distributing it digitally were able to attract a global audience of over 15 million viewers.”