Sky Sports Releases Viewing Figures For Premier League Restart

Coverage of Manchester City’s behind-closed-doors victory over Arsenal at the Etihad Stadium reached a reported peak audience of 3.4 million, approaching record levels, while the earlier match between Aston Villa and Sheffield United at Villa Park saw a peak audience of 2.7 million, as fans flocked to their tv screens for Premier League football’s return.

Sky has also revealed that numbers on its digital platforms and website saw an increase, attracting 12 million views of Premier League videos and 4.9 million users on its website in under 24 hours.

The interest in the return of the Premier League among fans across the country was also evident in figures released by mobile phone operator O2, who reported a nationwide spike in data traffic.

An increase from the week previous began to increase after 4pm – when Sky’s coverage began – and began to peak at 6pm. According to the company, the busiest hour was 8pm – just before kick-off for the Manchester City v Arsenal match – where O2 saw a 13% increase in the amount of data used nationwide.

O2 also revealed a more localised 24% increase in data traffic in Sheffield at 7pm, and a 21% increase in Manchester at 8pm.

Brendan O’Reilly, Chief Technology Officer, O2, said: “Our data shows that the football is bringing Britain together again – whether that’s chatting via text or calls, or online sporting ‘Watch Parties’ – with matches allowing us to return to some sense of normality. 

“During lockdown, O2 has doubled elements of our network capacity to ensure Britain stays connected and it’s great to see we’ve been able to help fans watch football again.” 

All 90 outstanding Premier League games from before the lockdown will be screened by four broadcasters, Sky, BT Sport, the BBC and Amazon, with the latter confirming that it will stream all four of its games for free on its live-streaming Twitch platform.