Winter Olympics: White's Snowboarding Three-peat Quest Drops In as Top Global Streaming Event

When it comes to streaming, it appears that Shaun White’s quest to fashion an Olympic three-peat in the halfpipe competition helped generate the most interest around the world during the early days of the Winter Games.

Data from Akamai Technologies, which is providing more than 20 broadcasters around the globe with technical assistance in delivering live and on-demand online video coverage of the Sochi Olympics, indicates that the most digital consumption occurred during the Tuesday window when the snowboarding legend finished off the podium. The halfpipe and other events in that period on Feb. 11 drove more than 1.3 terabits per seconds (Tbps) of online video traffic across the Akamai Intelligent Platform, according to the company, whose Olympic clients include NBCUniversal in the U.S., France Televisions and TV2 Norway.

Action in cross country skiing and biathlon disciplines during the morning of Feb. 11, and hockey, snowboarding and figure skating the following day were tied for second with 1.1 Tbps, ahead of the 1 million for the Opening Ceremony on Feb. 7. (Check out the top 7 below.)

“The Sochi Games mark Akamai’s tenth year of helping rights-holders deliver the Olympics experience to audiences around the world,” said Troy Snyder, vice president and executive producer of Akamai. “We believe that the scale and reach of the Akamai Intelligent Platform has played a crucial role in helping to ensure that everybody from family and friends of participating athletes, to fans of the Olympics and sports in general have been able to enjoy the Sochi Games, no matter where they’ve watched or what connected device they’ve used.”

Top Terabits from Sochi Games

Figure skating/snowboarding (evening) Feb. 11: 1.3   Tbps

Cross-country skiing/biathlon (morning) Feb. 11: 1.1 Tbps 

Hockey/snowboarding/figure skating     Feb. 12:  1.1 Tbps

Opening Ceremony                                 Feb. 7: 1.0 Tbps

Biathlon                                                  Feb.  10: 969 Gbps

Figure skating/ski jumping                     Feb. 9: 949 Gbps

Figure skating/biathlon/luge                  Feb. 8: 761 Gbps

Source: Akamai Technologies through Feb. 12