If a football game played in London beginning at 9:30 a.m. ET and not available on traditional television, will anyone watch? Yes, as it turns out. In a big way.
Sunday morning's Jaguars-Bills game, available exclusively online, drew 33.6 million streams and 15.2 million unique viewers, according to Yahoo. NFL executive Hans Schroeder told Sports Business Daily a stream counted if a viewer watched for more than three seconds.
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The number that might have been of the most interest to the league was that one-third of the streams came from outside the U.S. — a crucial factor as the NFL looks to expand its reach globally.
According to SBD, those numbers don't include digital traffic from China, and total viewership will increase when ratings are obtained from Jacksonville, Buffalo and London, the only markets where the game was televised over the air.
"We couldn’t be more proud that the NFL chose Yahoo to bring football to fans around the world through this unique live stream experience," Yahoo senior vice president Adam Cahan said in a release. "We’re seeing more and more people shift away from TV and we’re thrilled to join the NFL in setting a new standard for sports programming."
