Case Study: NBC Olympics achieves scalable, secure multiscreen streaming to 62 million viewers with Akamai Technologies

NBC Olympics partners with Akamai to deliver online streaming and site delivery to viewers tuning in from any device, anywhere for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

NBC Olympics faced the immense challenge of delivering uninterrupted, high‑quality live and on‑demand coverage of the 2014 Sochi Winter Games to a global, multiscreen audience over an 18‑day period. With viewers expecting instant access across PCs, tablets and smartphones—and with pay‑TV authentication, content‑rights protection, DDoS risk and unpredictable traffic spikes to manage—NBC needed a partner that could scale delivery, secure streams and integrate smoothly within a complex multivendor workflow.

Akamai provided its Intelligent Platform, CDN, KONA security and active monitoring plus advisory support to optimize origin placement, caching and traffic routing across devices and networks. The result: nearly 62 million unique online viewers, a record authenticated audience of 2.1 million for the U.S.–Canada hockey semifinal, peak traffic of ~3.5 trillion bits/sec, 276 million page views over 17 days, sub‑3‑second average page downloads, full site availability and significant infrastructure savings (avoiding 500+ media servers) while ensuring only authorized users accessed restricted video.

NBC Olympics