Live streaming doubled during Euro 2012 final

Research conducted by Flash Networks has revealed that Euro 2012 stimulated a dramatic increase in live streaming in Europe, as well as a drastic growth in sports websites’ traffic on the day of the tournament final.

There was an increase of 210% in live sports streaming in Europe during the final of Euro 2012, which saw Italy take on Spain. These figures compare to a rise of just 20% in the Asia-Pacific region.

Merav Bahat, vice president of marketing and business development at Flash Networks said: “Special events in general, and sporting events specifically, have a significant impact on mobile video traffic patterns for operators worldwide.”

With regards to the traffic flow to sports websites, there was less of a gap: in Europe it increased by 215%, understandably; in Asia-Pacific the figure stood at 156%; the US number was just 8%.

However, when it came to P2P (peer-to-peer, e.g. BitTorrent) streaming, Asia-Pacific grew by 123% compared to Europe’s 42% across the tournament as a whole.

Finally, domestic figures published by Digital Spy showed that 8.3% of football fans in Britain used desktop PCs, laptops, smartphones or tablets to watch the games.

View the full Flash Networks report here.