National broadcast rights holders, pay-TV providers, and sports programmers used Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Elemental solutions to power live streamed experiences for an estimated 3.4 billion people watching the FIFA World Cup in Russia this summer.
AWS Elemental solutions were also used in the central equipment room by the tournament host broadcaster.
According to market research firm GlobalWebIndex, the largest TV audiences for the event were in Latin America. Among AWS deployments in the region is izzi, the largest cable provider in Mexico, serving approximately 4.5 million households.
AWS supported customers delivering multiscreen coverage of the events in Europe, including Austrian public service broadcaster ORF, which used AWS Elemental in a test 4K HDR live stream of the tournament for OTT delivery to web clients, iOS devices, and Smart TV platforms. The ORF workflow was supported by system integrator Logic Media in cooperation with ORF and the Institut für Rundfunktechnik IRT.
Meanwhile in the US, rights holder Telemundo Deportes powered by NBC Sports’ Playmaker Media used AWS Elemental to send contribution streams from its network operations center in Moscow back to NBC Sports in Stamford, Conn., and to power HD streaming of the matches nationally on En Vivo and NBC Sports apps. The Mexico-Sweden Group Stage finale from Russia peaked at 1.02 million concurrent live streams – the most for any event in NBC Sports Digital History, excluding Super Bowls, and the only event other than the Super Bowl to hit the 1 million mark.
“The high visibility, large audience size, spiky resource demands, and timebound nature of this live event make AWS the perfect solution for delivering better experiences at scale,” said Alex Dunlap, general manager of AWS Elemental. “Content providers are using AWS to reduce costs and nimbly set up new channels and services cost efficiently while minimising impact on staff resources.”
