How the Olympics played out on YouTube

When we started preparing for the Olympics last year, we prioritized two things: giving you a front-row experience, and serving you video at the best quality possible. You responded in a huge way:

Around the world

• Giving more people access to watch live and recorded events was key. Across the US and 64 countries in Africa and Asia you watched 231 million total streams. Of those, 72 million total streams came from IOC YouTube Channel.
• At peak, YouTube delivered video for more than half a million livestreams at the same time. That’s 5X the capacity of Wembley Stadium.
• Live video looked better than ever before, with a 7X improvement in quality based on low buffering and high frame rates.

In the U.S.

• We powered online coverage for NBCOlympics.com, delivering more than 159 million total streams.
• Through NBC’s native apps, 37 percent of views came from mobile devices, and more than half were in HD.
• The U.S. Olympic Committee YouTube Channel shared behind the scenes video with more than 6.75 million views, and 50 YouTube Creators “Invaded” London to show the full experience through their eyes.

We hope you enjoyed the Games on YouTube and across Google, and thanks for tuning in.

The YouTube team