Akamai: Italy’s Euro Championship Win over England Yielded 5x Increase in Live-stream Traffic vs. the 2016 Title Game

Giorgio Chiellini of Italy celebrates winning EURO 2020 by lifting the trophy aloft with team mates during the UEFA Euro 2020 Championship Final between Italy and England at Wembley Stadium on July 11, 2021 in London, United Kingdom.
(Image credit: Jay Barratt - AMA/Getty Images)

How much has live-streaming of video over the internet replaced broadcast and cable transmission on a global basis in just five years? 

A lot. 

According to Akamai, Italy’s penalty kick-fueled European Championship win over England Sunday generated peak internet traffic of 34.9 terabytes per second, almost five times as much data than the 7.26 Tbps that was streamed back in 2016, when Portugal defeated France for the Euro title. 

Overall, the 51 “2020 Euro Championship” matches (the tourney was pushed to 2021 due to the pandemic) generated an average of 17.5 Tbps, vs. an average of 4.11 Tbps for the tournament five years earlier. 

Other later round games, meanwhile, also generated huge data usage numbers--the round-of-16 game between England and Germany resulted in usage of 33.9 Tbps, for example.

Akamai said it helped customers live stream nearly 580 million hours of tournament coverage this time around vs. 164 million hours in 2016. 

Daniel Frankel

Daniel Frankel is the managing editor of Next TV, an internet publishing vertical focused on the business of video streaming. A Los Angeles-based writer and editor who has covered the media and technology industries for more than two decades, Daniel has worked on staff for publications including E! Online, Electronic Media, Mediaweek, Variety, paidContent and GigaOm. You can start living a healthier life with greater wealth and prosperity by following Daniel on Twitter today!