BT Reveals Broadband Video Streaming Stats for England v France Match

Broadband ISP BT (EE) has published new data to show how much of an impact Saturday’s night’s FIFA World Cup 2026 football match between England and France had on the internet provider’s national network, which we’re told saw peak BBC iPlayer traffic extend 75% higher than the peak recorded during the equivalent 10pm–midnight period in an average week.

The match is also said to have coincided with a noticeable change in wider Saturday-night streaming habits. Netflix traffic fell by up to 27.4% and YouTube traffic by up to 13.6%, which BT suggested meant “households paused some of their usual on-demand entertainment to follow England’s final game, with traffic beginning to recover after full time“.

Across the eight matches, peak BBC iPlayer or ITVX traffic ranged from 75% to 683% above the equivalent average-week peak, with Mexico v England producing the largest proportional uplift. But England v Argentina remained the largest live-streaming event ever seen on BT’s network, with traffic exceeding the previous record by nearly 30%.

BT included some traffic graphs alongside the limited data supplied, although we do wish they would have made the text on their labels a bit larger and provided something more detailed than percentage figures. The good news is the World Cup has ended, so we can finally stop discussing this.. yay.