33.6M Streams for First Live NFL Game on Yahoo

SUNNVALE, CALIF.—This past weekend’s game between the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars offered more than the Jags late comeback. The game, which was played in London as part of the NFL’s International series, was the first to be live streamed on Yahoo and, in a report from the NFL, generated more than 33.6 million streams from 15.2 million unique viewers.

The NFL made the game available globally to anyone regardless of whether they had cable, authentication or a TV; viewers could stream it on all devices through Yahoo and Tumblr. It wasn’t just U.S. audiences that watched either, 33 percent of total views came from international audiences across 185 countries.

The NFL expects the 15.2 million of total viewers to increase as more markets come in. The game was not streamed for the Buffalo and Jacksonville areas, where it instead played on TV. It also played on TV in the London/U.K. market. The NFL was yet to unveil digital numbers from China as well.

NFL Senior Vice President of Media Strategy, Business Development & Sales Hans Schroeder expressed the NFL’s pleasure with initial results, but as of now there is no announcement that there will be future live streams of games on Yahoo or any other platform.