🏆 Okko Scores Major Win with UEFA Champions League Final
Streaming platforms continue to expand their audiences for sports broadcasts, gradually positioning themselves as the primary competitors to traditional linear television. A striking confirmation of this trend was the UEFA Champions League final between Arsenal and PSG, which took place on May 30.
The match became the largest football event in the history of the Okko streaming service: the live broadcast drew 4.5 million viewers on the platform, a sharp 65% increase over last year’s final. The colossal interest in the game drove a record-breaking influx of users to the service, with Okko’s subscriber base growing by more than 400,000 users in a single day.
In parallel, the commercial appeal of digital sports content continues to climb: over the 2025/26 season, the number of sponsors and partners on the platform multiplied by 2.5 times, surpassing the 15-brand milestone.
Despite streaming’s triumph in the football segment, traditional television still maintains a comfortable lead in terms of mass audience reach, a phenomenon particularly evident in ice hockey. By the end of the recently concluded KHL season, the cumulative audience for the 104 matches broadcast on federal television reached 39.1 million viewers. Meanwhile, the digital streaming of all 824 championship matches on online services garnered just 3.1 million views (calculated based on Kinopoisk subscriptions).
The disparity in the scale of reach is clearly illustrated by the season’s peak games. The year’s most popular television broadcast was the hockey matchup between Ak Bars and Lokomotiv on May 21, which drew 4.38 million people to their TV screens—a figure comparable to Okko’s entire audience for the Champions League final. For comparison, the most in-demand digital hockey broadcast—the game between Lokomotiv and Avangard on May 6—attracted 619,000 viewers to mobile devices and monitors.
The figures indicate that while digital platforms successfully monetize exclusive marquee matchups, traditional linear television remains the primary choice for the mainstream fan when it comes to long-term, large-scale tournaments.
Source: Cableman
