Case Study: NBC Sports Group achieves record-breaking Olympic streaming scale (3.3 billion minutes) with Microsoft Azure CDN

NBC Olympics breaks streaming records with support from Microsoft Azure

NBC Sports Group faced an unprecedented streaming challenge when it broadcast the Rio 2016 Olympics: more than 4,500 hours of content, millions of viewers across dozens of device types, and the need for flawless, 24/7 delivery. To meet that scale and device diversity, NBC Sports turned to Microsoft Azure CDN and Azure Media Services (with Azure Virtual Machines, Storage, and cloud encoders) to provide cloud-based encoding, hosting, dynamic packaging, and global delivery.

Microsoft Azure CDN implemented redundant datacenters, real-time monitoring, on-demand scaling (doubling compute to 20,000 cores), dynamic packaging, and live-to-VOD/DVR features so NBC could spin channels up and down instantly and maintain failover protection. The result: zero downtime across 17 days, more than 3.3 billion total streaming minutes (2.71 billion live), 100 million unique users, 100+ HD channels and 1080p streams, and a record number of concurrent events — all delivered at scale by Microsoft Azure CDN.

NBC Sports Group

Eric Black

Chief Technology Officer, Digital Media