TOKYO -- The World Cup soccer tournament gave online sports streaming a boost in Japan after a slow start, drawing record numbers of viewers while TV networks stepped back.
Japanese streaming platform Abema logged an all-time high of 17 million daily viewers on Dec. 2, the day of the Japan-Spain match. It saw a total of more than 41 million across the three days of group stage games involving the Samurai Blue. The round-of-16 match against Croatia drew so much traffic that Abema had to restrict access.
