NFL: the first game available to stream for free on Yahoo! draws 15 million users worldwide

The game between the Buffalo Bills - Jacksonville Jaguars (31-34), the first NFL match broadcast exclusively via free live streaming without geographic restrictions, attracted 15.2 million users on the different Yahoo! streaming platforms, on Sunday 25/10/2015 (kick-off at 15:30 CET, at Wembley Stadium in London (ENG).

In total, the match was watched by an accumulated 33.6 million viewers on various websites and mobile applications: Yahoo, Yahoo Sports, the streaming platform Yahoo Screen and the microblogging platform Tumblr. 33% of these viewers were recorded outside the United States, across 185 countries in total.

The US technology company acquired the broadcasting rights for this single game from the NFL for an estimated amount between $10m and $20m (€9m-€18m), on 03/06/2015 (Google and Facebook were also candidates). Through this initiative, the NFL wanted to target the millions of households that do not subscribe to pay-TV channels that broadcast American football games, increase the audience of the US League abroad, and also test the technical capabilities of live streaming…