Illicit Super Bowl streams reached 100,000 devices on Peacock
An Adalytics report highlights how illicit sports livestreaming services, like StreamSports99 and WatchSports, are impacting official TV ratings and ad revenue by distributing high-profile events to hundreds of thousands of devices. The report suggests Super Bowl ratings could be off by as much as 2 million viewers due to these unauthorized streams. This disruption affects advertisers who rely on accurate viewership data.
Key Takeaways
- Adalytics says StreamSports99 and WatchSports are distributing high-profile sporting events to hundreds of thousands of devices.
- A single Super Bowl stream on Peacock reached more than 100,000 devices, according to the report.
- The Super Bowl’s official ratings could be off by as much as 2 million viewers.
- Advertisers rely on these ratings to measure viewership and value sports inventory.
Why It Matters
This points to an immediate measurement problem: illicit livestreams can pull large audiences outside official ratings systems, with one Peacock Super Bowl stream reaching more than 100,000 devices. For the streaming ecosystem, that creates a gap between actual consumption and the audience data used to price and sell sports ad inventory. The specific signal to watch is whether future Adalytics reporting or ratings revisions quantify the size of the viewer mismatch around major events like the Super Bowl.
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