Network operators and Internet exchange points in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile agree: the 2026 FIFA World Cup consolidated streaming as the dominant way to watch major sporting events, with unprecedented traffic spikes in the region.
The number of people watching football matches on broadcast or cable television continues to decrease. This was the premise with which Carlos Martínez (LACNIC) opened a panel discussion featuring Nicolás Graizer (CABASE), Hernán Moguilevsky (PIT Chile), Julimar Mendes (NIC.br), and Guilherme Ganascim (Made4it). Representing two Internet exchange points (IXPs), an operators’ association, and a network engineering consultancy firm for Internet service providers (ISPs), the panelists examined the shift from the infrastructure point of view. Their accounts painted a consistent picture: more traffic, sharper spikes, and networks that can no longer be scaled using the same rules as before.
A World Cup Through the Lens of Streaming
According to Martínez, Qatar 2022 was the first tournament in which streaming became the primary way to watch. By 2026, the panelists agreed, this shift was firmly established.
Graizer shared a perspective from Argentina, a country that played all eight World Cup matches, and also from his organization which operates an OTT with 80 CDN nodes across the country. Today, matches can be viewed through traditional television, TDA (free-to-air terrestrial television with very low latency), or OTT applications such as Disney+, as well as providers’ IPTV services. The latter option, he noted, represents the biggest change since the previous World Cup.
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Qatar 2022 had already taught operators a key lesson about network design. Argentina’s opening match kicked off on a Tuesday at 7:00 a.m., prompting everyone to open their streaming apps at the exact same time. By 2026, apps had become leaner: opening took viewers directly to the match, without having to download metadata or additional content. “It’s not just an infrastructure issue,” Graizer said.
From Chile, Hernán Moguilevsky described the World Cup as the most-watched event on the planet, covered almost entirely through streaming. He attributed Chile’s traffic peaks to the fact that access networks offer very high residential access speeds, noting that the volumes had grown exponentially from one World Cup to the next.
In Brazil, Ganascim described a cultural shift. Many Brazilian viewers switched from broadcast television to YouTube, which streamed the matches, even though this involved a slightly longer delay. The operators he works with recorded traffic increases of approximately 40% during pre-tournament friendlies, and up to 45% during the World Cup itself.
Qatar 2022 had already taught operators a key lesson about network design. Argentina’s opening match kicked off on a Tuesday at 7:00 a.m., prompting everyone to open their streaming apps at the exact same time. By 2026, apps had become leaner: opening took viewers directly to the match, without having to download metadata or additional content. “It’s not just an infrastructure issue,” Graizer said.
From Chile, Hernán Moguilevsky described the World Cup as the most-watched event on the planet, covered almost entirely through streaming. He attributed Chile’s traffic peaks to the fact that access networks offer very high residential access speeds, noting that the volumes had grown exponentially from one World Cup to the next.
In Brazil, Ganascim described a cultural shift. Many Brazilian viewers switched from broadcast television to YouTube, which streamed the matches, even though this involved a slightly longer delay. The operators he works with recorded traffic increases of approximately 40% during pre-tournament friendlies, and up to 45% during the World Cup itself.
Mendes, whose organization, NIC.br, operates the IX.br internet exchange points, measured a 46% increase in traffic during Brazil’s matches. Of the national team’s five games, only one was played in the afternoon. The rest took place toward the end of the day and into the early evening, a time when network traffic is naturally high. Adding a live event to this already high baseline, he said, magnified the challenge.
Traffic Peaks, Plateaus, and Long Queues
The panelists described a traffic pattern unlike those of other tournaments. Ganascim explained that social media activity begins before a match. Streaming traffic then grows as the match begins, drops during halftime (when social media activity rises once again), and then climbs again in the second half.
Graizer presented the other side of the coin. While the networks delivering the match see traffic rise, fall during halftime, and rise again in the second half, the CDNs delivering other types of content experience the opposite: traffic drops during the first half, rises at halftime, and reaches an extreme peak when the match ends as viewers begin to share memes and replay goals. The result is a higher average level of consumption throughout the entire month of the World Cup. The moderator and panelists agreed that the World Cup’s impact extends well beyond the 90 minutes of each game.
Graizer also shared an anecdote he noticed while monitoring traffic. During a game, a CDN server’s graph flattened into a plateau which at first glance looked like saturation. But in fact, no one had left their couch, changed the channel, or turned off their TV. Traffic had simply remained constant.
Mendes added another unexpected example. During a match, he noticed a CDN experiencing a surge in traffic that lasted an hour and a half, a pattern that resembled a football match broadcast. The cause, however, was the premiere of a highly anticipated show that happened to air at the same time as the match. His takeaway was that it is essential to understand what other content is competing on the same network.
How IXPs, CDNs, and Operators Responded
Preparations were made in advance, but they were not quite enough. According to Graizer, many members expanded their ports and links prior to the tournament, yet they still had to continue adding capacity from one match to the next.
Moguilevsky explained that, unlike in previous cases, organic growth would not be enough. Because IXP capacity agreements are usually long-term, an exception was made: members who requested it could increase their capacity solely for the duration of the event and return to their usual levels afterward. These expansions were implemented in advance, thus avoiding any last-minute changes to the network.
In Brazil, the pressure was even greater. Ganascim reported that CDNs reached their installed capacity limits, forcing traffic away from exchange points to transit providers. Google also had to reroute traffic within its own applications. For one major client, traffic in a single CDN cluster jumped from an average of about 20 Gbps to 400 Gbps during matches. Others saw increases from 10 Gbps to between 80 and 100 Gbps. This surge also overloaded internal backbones designed for a different traffic distribution. Ganascim mentioned a new type of Google CDN designed for live events and noted that other sporting events such as the Copa Libertadores will likely drive further use.
Mendes shared numbers from the point of view of Brazilian IXPs. Before the World Cup, participants’ ports reached saturation about six times a day on average. During the tournament, this number grew to between 50 and 60 a day and did not return to previous levels once the event concluded. Traffic reached a record of 55 Tbps across IX.br and 35 Tbps in São Paulo alone. Smaller providers are currently experiencing the most saturation, and NIC.br is actively reaching out to them to help them scale up, although he observed that the solution does not depend solely on the IXP.
No Turning Back
For the panelists, streaming is here to stay. Mendes was the most emphatic: “This is already the reality today” and the change has passed the point of no return. All that remains is to make the necessary adjustments. The primary challenge is latency, which builds up throughout the process, from capturing and preparing the video to its distribution via a CDN and buffering on the platform. The role of CDNs will be crucial for reducing latency by bringing content closer to the user.
Graizer illustrated this problem with a familiar scene. Because each platform has different delays, neighbors in the same apartment building cheer a goal at different times, sometimes as much as 30 seconds apart. Moguilevsky said this difference will need to be addressed, because platforms have competed to be the first to show a goal, a situation that has even led to fights between neighbors.
Moguilevsky said access networks will need to deliver better quality, support more devices per household, and accommodate greater audience interaction during broadcasts. This means an increase in upload traffic, something that has barely been part of the conversation until now.
Given this scenario, it is clear that the Internet has firmly established itself as the new star and the primary medium for major sports broadcasts. Infrastructure and distribution networks are no longer simply competing with traditional television. They are relegating it to a secondary role as consumers shift toward streaming and digital environments. Although the consolidation of this paradigm has tested the operational capacity of network operators, CDNs, and IXPs and highlighted key technical challenges such as managing extreme traffic spikes and the urgent need to reduce latency, there is now no turning back.
