Spain has been declared the winner of the 2023 Women’s World Cup, Australia’s exceptional Matildas achieved fourth place, and never mind all of that, because Sam Kerr scored the best goal of the entire tournament – and it had a big impact on Aussie internet use.
That is, according to some stats Aussie Broadband pulled on Optus Sport and Facebook use at the time of Sam Kerr’s brilliant kick. If you want a reminder of the exceptional moment – here it is again.
Two days after the Matildas captain scored that incredible goal, Aussie Broadband’s side account on Twitter-cum-X shared the internet uptick stats.
For context, AS4764 is an autonomous system number operated by Aussie Broadband, through which, in basic terms, the internet traffic of Aussie Broadband customers goes.
The graph on the left shows increased Aussie Broadband traffic from Optus Sport, and the graph on the right shows increased traffic directly from Facebook. As Aussie Broadband wrote, it’s pretty obvious to see the moment Sam Kerr scored that incredible goal, as more users were being connected to internet services like Optus Sport and Facebook to watch or chat about the game – for users live at the stadium, thank god phone networks are so strong there.
Not that this is surprising, mind you – the semi-final match against England was the most watched event on TV in Australian history, taking down Kathy Freeman’s 400-metre run at the 2000 Olympics, at least according to Seven Network viewership numbers (ie, not taking into consideration those at the game, those watching the game with mates/at the pub/at the park, or even those streaming from Optus Sport). It also broke the record for the most streamed event in Australia, via Seven’s 7Plus streaming service, although Aussie Broadband said there wasn’t enough data to accurately detect 7Plus traffic.
Anyway, the Women’s World Cup is over, and I can now go back to not really caring about sport until the Matildas head to Paris for the 2024 Olympics. Thank you very much Sam Kerr and the Tillies for making me care about Football.
We’ve reached out to NBN Co to see if the network operator also had some stats for all ISPs on the incredible moment.