Even though the U.S. loves its streaming television, we apparently remain a nation of sports fans.
According to data from Procera Networks, Netflix traffic dropped about 10 percent on several U.S. broadband networks and streaming services during the Rio Olympics opening weekend. It’s a definite change since the 2012 London games, when the streaming giant reportedly saw a 25 percent usage drop on some networks, but it’s still a marked dip considering how much the company has grown and expanded over the last four years.
#Rio2016 Olympics Drives @Netflix U.S. Viewing Down 10% Over Opening Weekend (Study) https://t.co/7PTqOz6sKZ
— Variety (@Variety) August 8, 2016
The data was given to Variety by a company called Procera, which sells bandwidth management equipment to internet service providers. It claims to have found a roughly 10 percent dip in bandwidth consumption for Aug. 6-7 when compared to average traffic from the preceding four days. Procera did not, however, disclose the names of the four internet service customers it collected the data from.
In a letter to shareholders earlier in the year, Netflix said it anticipated the spectacle of the Olympics to slow growth for 2016’s entire third economic quarter. Based on the dip experienced in 2012, the company projected it’d add 300,000 new U.S. subscribers for Q3 this year (versus 880,000 in the same quarter during 2015), and 2.3 million internationally (compared with 3.62 million in 2015).
Sports in 2016: Still very relevant!
H/T Variety
