Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Vivo IPL Cricket Final Is a Record-Breaker for Hotstar and Akamai

18/06/2018

Vivo IPL Cricket Final Is a Record-Breaker for Hotstar and Akamai 10.3 million concurrent viewers watched the live stream By Troy Dreier, Contributor, Streaming & Digital

Monday, June 18, 2018 - 11:49 am

Print This Story

Story Highlights

As the world stops to watch the World Cup, it's worth asking what the most-streamed sports event has been. A major soccer final? The latest Super Bowl? No, believe it or not, it was cricket, and it took place in late May in India.

On May 27, a peak 10.3 million concurrent viewers watched the Chennai Super Kings and the Hyderabad Sunrisers face off in the final match of the Vivo Indian Premier League (IPL) tournament from Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. The event was carried by Indian streaming platform Hotstar and distributed by content-delivery network (CDN) Akamai. The 60-day-long tournament was streamed in six languages: Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Kannada, Hindi, and English. (By the way: the Chennai Super Kings won.)

Though televised, Hotstar's Vivo IPL games still attracted a massive streaming audience.

The two teams have played each other in the IPL on 10 occasions, with the Chennai Super Kings dominating the head-to-head record, winning eight matches while Sunrisers Hyderabad has won only two, says Parimal Pandya, head of Akamai's media business in Asia Pacific Japan.

The next-largest concurrently viewed online event is Felix Baumgartner's 24-mile jump from space, which more than 8 million watched live on YouTube in 2012. Hotstar and Akamai knew they had something big this season when, on April 10, their live-streamed match between the Super Knights and the Kolkata Knight Riders peaked with 5.5 million concurrent viewers. And that was just an early-season game.

Surprisingly, Hotstar's Vivo IPL games were televised and still attracted a massive streaming audience. Hotstar parent Star India owns the broadcast and digital rights to the IPL for five years for India and the rest of the world, allowing Star India to deliver the IPL to Indian audiences abroad.

To best serve its customers, Hotstar created a mobile-first experience for this year's tournament, producing lower-bitrate encodes optimized for smaller screens and lower-bandwidth delivery.

One of the things that's really important when architecting a streaming solution is making sure that, if you know your audience is coming in for a particular device set, you're using a bitrate-encoding profile that's tailored and catered to that device, explains Shawn Michels, director, media product management, Akamai.

Hotstar also created an engaging interactive experience. It included mixing in Watch'NPlay, a game that let viewers test their cricket expertise while watching the game. Social features and even a VR view were also offered.

Watch'NPlay is a skill-based game wherein a user gets to test his or her cricket knowledge and expertise along with millions of other users tuned into the match, Pandya explains. The game takes the Indian cricket enthusiasts' innate behavior of providing running commentary on player performance and strategy into an actual game where they stand to win big.

This season's concurrent-live-views records easily beat Akamai's previous record of 4.8 million during the ICC Champions Trophy Final between India and Pakistan in June 2017, also a cricket match offered by Hotstar. Akamai's next-largest live stream was the U.S. presidential inauguration in January 2017, with 4.6 million views.

When Akamai's engineers see that an upcoming event has the potential to create a significant draw, they do a little advance work to prepare for the load. That includes taking a look at their mapping systems to make sure they've mapped the event properly, creating a delivery map that not only builds in resiliency and redundancy but also allocates additional server capacity in regions where they expect extreme demand.

Akamai monitors high-capacity events to be sure the streaming experience is equivalent to television. For monitoring, nothing beats eyes on glass, with personnel in the broadcast-operations center watching the streams as they happen, looking for interruptions or delays. The company also runs load tests to be sure it can scale up based on guidelines determined by the customers.

Live-streaming an event carries special challenges, such as delivering the video to customers with the lowest-possible startup time. A two-second startup delay can lose as much as 16% of the total audience; a five-second delay can cause 25% of the audience to go elsewhere. The answer for Akamai is to map and architect delivery systems so that it can always stream video to customers with the lowest startup time. As major live-streamed events grow in importance, Akamai is looking for new technologies that let it provide quick delivery from edge servers.

With live streaming to both desktop and mobile playing an increased role in the way fans get their sports, Akamai should have plenty of opportunities to test and refine its systems. Besides IPL cricket, it has worked with the Super Bowl, March Madness, The Masters, and the World Cup.

Typically, Michels says, there are very few major large sporting events that aren't delivered and originated over the Akamai network.
LINK: https://www.sportsvideo.org/2018/06/18/vivo-ipl-cricket-final-is-a-rec...
See more stories from svg

Most recent headlines

09/12/2024

Dalet Named an IDC Innovator in Media and Entertainment

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced that it has been named an IDC Innovator in the IDC Innovators: ...

27/11/2024

Give Me the Backstory: Get to Know Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez, the Co-Directors of Sujo

By Jessica Herndon One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Fest...

27/11/2024

Dinner and a Movie: Katie Arthurs on Top End Wedding and Breakfast Burritos

The author watching a film with her mother and brother....

27/11/2024

Inside the Archives: Showcasing Sundance Talent in Oz and the Colosseum

Denzel Washington at the Piper-Heidsieck Tribute press conference at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival. Photo by Sandria Miller...

27/11/2024

Spotify Teams Up With UK Charity Youth Music To Support Grassroots Youth Spaces

Over the past decade in the U.K., financial constraints and shifting community resources have put many grassroots music spaces under increasing pressure. There ...

27/11/2024

Are You Wrapped-Ready? First Make Sure Your Spotify App Is Up-to-Date

Wrapped is almost here and Spotify is starting to drop hints at what this year's campaign is all about: the fans. To get ready for the big reveal, Spotify i...

27/11/2024

Find Restaurant Recommendations Based on Your Music Taste With Spotify, American Express, and Resy

Dining out for the vibes? You're not alone. According to Resy's 2024 Ret...

27/11/2024

L3Harris' Lou Speaight is a Finalist at Women in Defence UK Awards 2024

The Women in Defence U.K. awards ceremony celebrates the extraordinary contributions individuals and teams make to Defence....

27/11/2024

Tint Boosts Collaborative Workflows with EditShare Storage Across Gothenburg and Stockholm Facilities

Tint Boosts Collaborative Workflows with EditShare Storage Across Gothenburg and...

27/11/2024

Clear-Com Powers Communication at the 2024 Singapore Airlines Formula 1 Singapore...

eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({...

27/11/2024

Nielsen launches activation with Advanced Audiences, enhancing digital campaign precision, reach and effectiveness across New Zealand

Auckland, November 26, 2024 Nielsen today announced the launch of Advanced Aud...

27/11/2024

Lynx Technik Adds Vincent Noyer as Director of Product Marketing

WEITERSTADT, Germany Broadcast TV equipment provider Lynx Technik has named Vincent Noyer as director of product marketing....

27/11/2024

NBCUniversal Works With Walmart to Bring Live Shopping to Live Sports

NEW YORK NBCUniversal and Walmart said they are bringing new shoppable experiences and measurement capabilities to live sports coverage. Kicking off on Thanksgi...

27/11/2024

Deadline extended for submissions to Best in Market 2024 Awards

The awards are open to any company that launched a product/service or brought new upgrades to an existing product/service in 2024 By TVBEurope Staff Publishe...

27/11/2024

Marc Allera to leave BT Group

In a nine year career with BT, Allera played a key role in the development of its joint venture with Warner Bros Discovery, TNT Sports By Matthew Corrigan Pu...

27/11/2024

Ross Video Hopes To BHAG Private Equity With Ambitious Strategy Shift

Ross Video has outlined a shift in its strategic approach and announced a significant financial target for 2030....

27/11/2024

Bending Spoons To Acquire Brightcove for $233 Million

BOSTON Brightcove said it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Bending Spoons in an all-cash transaction valued at about $233 million....

27/11/2024

Transmit, Wurl Partner on FAST Channel Ads

NEW YORK Advanced-advertising solutions provider Transmit and connected-TV tech company Wurl have struck a partnership that will bring Transmit's in-stream ...

27/11/2024

Prime Video Adds More FAST Channels for the Holidays

Amazon's Prime Video continues to bulk up its free, ad-supported streaming TV channels with the launch of holiday-themed channels and other services....

27/11/2024

Sinclair's Chris Ripley Lays Out ATSC 3.0 Challenges, Opportunities

HUNT VALLEY, Md. Earlier this month, Sinclair signed a memorandum of understanding with the Institute of Technology Bombay covering their collaboration on broad...

27/11/2024

Krotos Introduces the Creator Toolkit: Tailored Sound Effects for Content Creators

Krotos Introduces the Creator Toolkit: Tailored Sound Effects for Content Creato...

27/11/2024

First look revealed for third explosive instalment of Sky Original Gangs of London', coming 2025

First look revealed for third explosive instalment of Sky Original Gangs of Lon...

27/11/2024

The Summer Hikaru Died' Set to Bring Eerie Anime Thrills to Netflix

Back to All News The Summer Hikaru Died' Set to Bring Eerie Anime Thrills to NetflixPlay Video Play Video Entertainment 27 November 2024 GlobalJapan ...

27/11/2024

Thales Alenia Space to lead Carb-Chaser project, the first French constellation to monitor human-induced CO emissions

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Cannes, November 27, 2024 - Thales Alenia Space,...

27/11/2024

RT Radio 1 Folk Awards Tickets on Sale

Awards on Wednesday 26th February 2025 in Vicar Street, Dublin #rtefolkawards | Tickets via Ticketmaster (link below) Tickets for the 7th RT Radio 1 Folk Awa...

27/11/2024

How RTX AI PCs Unlock AI Agents That Solve Complex Problems Autonomously With Generative AI

Editor's note: This post is part of the AI Decoded series, which demystifies...

26/11/2024

Afghan Reporter Wins Young Journalist of the Year 2024

A woman journalist from Afghanistan has been named Thomson Foundation's Young Journalist of the Year 2024. The journalist, who we are not naming for her ow...

26/11/2024

Audiobook Authors and Publishers Get a New Suite of Tools With the Launch of Spotify for Authors

Spotify's audiobook catalog brings more than 300,000 titles-and counting-to ...

26/11/2024

L3Harris in the UK Achieves Silver ERS Award Status

Jules Ball and Henry Watts, with the award being presented by Brigadier Adam Fraser-Hitchen ADC DL, Deputy Commander of 3rd UK Division....

26/11/2024

Reliable Power for Broadcast Sports Production

Steve ColeFor more than 14 years Steve Cole has been enjoying life in live broadcast, starting as a camera operator and shortly after, adding PTZ/remote camera ...

26/11/2024

Studio Technologies Introduces Model 352A and Model 354A...

Studio Technologies, manufacturer of high-quality audio, video, and fiber-optic solutions, presents the Model 352A and Model 354A Talk Stations. The units suppo...

26/11/2024

TASCAM Sonicview Recording and Mixing Consoles and SMPTE...

TASCAM, renowned for its versatile and adaptable audio solutions, today announced that its TASCAM Sonicview Digital Mixing Consoles and optional IF-ST2110 Expan...

26/11/2024

Blue Lucy takes on The Americas

London-based media technology business, Blue Lucy, has set up a US division of the company and appointed Dina Behar Hevert as VP Americas. The company's ent...

26/11/2024

Leader Experiences 2024 as Year of Ongoing Innovation in...

The American writer William Sydney Porter, better known as O. Henry, wrote of New York City in the early 1900s that It'll be a great place if they ever fin...

26/11/2024

AGILE CONTENT AND TISCALI TEAM UP TO LAUNCH THE TV SERVIC...

Agile Content joins forces with Tiscali to introduce a new platform in Italy, offering a wide range of premium content for all audiences. Agile Content, a Eur...

26/11/2024

Bulgarian Fund for Women made accessible using SubtitleNE...

For immediate release 26 November 2024, Sofia, Bulgaria Profuz Digital recently sponsored the Bulgarian Fund for Women's 20th Anniversary event by donat...

26/11/2024

Ikegami Sees Accelerating Adoption of IP and Mixed-Format...

Ikegami reports an accelerating migration to high-efficiency IP and mixed-format UHD/HD content creation throughout 2024. Product developments announced during ...

26/11/2024

CVP Announces the Second Belgian Production Technology Sh...

The premier event for cutting-edge production solutions, technologies, and industry insights returns to Brussels. CVP, one of Europe's leading resellers an...

26/11/2024

EMG-Gravity Media to deliver more than 350 hours coverage...

EMG / Gravity Media, a leading force in production and content, media services and facilities, today detailed EMG / Gravity Media's expanding broadcast and ...

26/11/2024

iZotope unveils Cascadia, an intelligent tape delay for clear and present mixes

iZotope unveils Cascadia, an intelligent tape delay for clear and present mixes Brie Clayton November 26, 2024 0 Comments Keep your mixes clear and fo...

26/11/2024

Award Winning Memoir of a Snail Finished in DaVinci Resolve Studio

Award Winning Memoir of a Snail Finished in DaVinci Resolve Studio Brie Clayton November 26, 2024 0 Comments DaVinci Resolve Studio used to create uni...

26/11/2024

Ross Video hopes to BHAG private equity with a shift in strategy and ambitious growth plans

Pulling back on innovation and growth doesn't fit the DNA of Ross Video. Pri...

26/11/2024

Bending Spoons dips into enterprise SaaS market with $233 million Brightcove acquisition

Italy-based Bending Spoons suite of digital technology products includes Evernot...

26/11/2024

Nielsen: Fox, Disney Gain Viewing Share in October

NEW YORK In the battle for viewing among the big TV and media players, Fox had a superb October, earning an 8.4% share of total TV viewing in Nielsen's Octo...

26/11/2024

FCC: Jan 1. Deadline to Implement Audio Description Rules in DMAs 101-110

WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has issued a reminder that stations in TV markets 101 to 110 must implement its new audio de...

26/11/2024

NBC News Now Expands Into Latin America

NEW YORK NBC News Now has expanded its international distribution into Latin America with launches in Mexico and Brazil on Samsung TV Plus....

26/11/2024

Scripps Sets up AI Strategy Team

CINCINNATI In a notable example of a broadcaster turning to artificial intelligence to improve operations and open up new business opportunities, E.W. Scripps h...

26/11/2024

Cablecast Community Media Bids Fond Farewell to Steve Israelsky

Cablecast Community Media Bids Fond Farewell to Steve Israelsky Brie Clayton November 25, 2024 0 Comments Steve sails into retirement following a colo...

26/11/2024

New Games, New Stakes: Squid Game' Season 2 Main Trailer and Key Art Round and Round' Unveiled

Back to All News New Games, New Stakes: Squid Game' Season 2 Main Trailer ...