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3 Information System Digital MediaA Study of Impact to Internet Traffic during
the Tokyo 2020 Games : Correlation
between Traffic and TV Rating
YOSHIDA Tomoya

SUZUKI Takashi

MATSUZAKI Mitsunari

When world‑class sporting events such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games and the Soccer World Cup are held or
when high‑profile TV programs are broadcast Internet traffic (hereinafter referred to as “traffic”) is affected In theOlympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 we observed some interesting fluctuations in Internet traffic during theopening and closing ceremonies of the games as well as during the events which conflicted with the TV viewership In
this article we introduce those traffic trends
Keywords：Traffic TV ratings

1．Introduction

2．Traffic Trends of Tokyo 2020 Games

Human behavior and traffic are closely related For

In this section we introduce the traffic trends of theexample the recent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‑Tokyo 2020 Games including the overall trends the19) increased the traffic due to the stay‑home and theopening ceremony and the trends of the most populartraffic increases temporarily when a high‑profile event isevents

held via the Internet due to increased Internet viewersIn the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020
(hereinafter referred to as “Tokyo 2020 Games” )we observed an increase in online viewing traffic due

21

Overall Trends during the Games

Figure 1 shows the traffic trends of OCN an NTT
Communications Internet service provider

to online distribution via TVer and gorin jp while aDuring the Tokyo 2020 Games especially from thedecrease in traffic was observed during TV broadcast by

end of July to the beginning of August a significant

NHK and commercial broadcasters In section 2 wedecrease in Internet traffic was observed for a certain

introduce the actual traffic fluctuations concerning TV

period This means that many people watched theviewership Note that the traffic trends introduced here

competition events on TV resulting in a decrease ininclude the amount of Internet viewing

traffic volume Internet traffic volume declines whenhigh‑profile events are held However characteristics
such as a decline in traffic over a period are rare andYOSHIDA Tomoya
Cloud and Network Services NTT Communications Corporation
E‑mail tomoya yoshida@ntt com
SUZUKI Takashi
Cloud and Network Services NTT Communications Corporation
MATSUZAKI Mitsunari
Cloud and Network Services NTT Communications Corporation

have not been observed in recent years except for theThe Journal of The Institute of Electronics Information and Communication Engineers Vol 105 No 8 Supplement pp 182‑187 August 2022

usage decreases for about a week during the year‑end© 2022 The Institute of Electronics Information and Communication Engineers

182

Tokyo 2020 Games
This trend is similar to the decrease in traffic observed
during the year‑end and New Year holidays Internet
and New Year holidays due to increased TV viewing at

THE JOURNAL OF THE INSTITUTE OF ELECTRONICS INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERS

Figure 1

Figure 2

OCN Traffic Trends

Traffic Trends during Olympic Opening CeremonySpecial Issue : Technology and Innovation in the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020183

home and when returning home Traffic trends for theTokyo 2020 Games are similar to this trend
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Traffic Trends during the Opening and Closing
Ceremonies

Next we introduce the traffic trends during theopening ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Games Figure 2
shows the correlation between the traffic for the opening
ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Games and the change inTV viewership (1) (the change in traffic when theaverage weekly traffic during the base week of June 21 isset to 1)

Figure 3

Traffic Trend of Olympic Closing Ceremony

Characteristic changes were observed in ①〜⑤ The
traffic decreased when the TV viewership increased andconversely increased when the TV viewership decreased for the various events of the Olympic opening
ceremony (2) The increase or decrease in traffic wasinversely related to the level of interest of the TV
viewers which was an interesting result①

Traffic decreased with the start of the opening
and closing ceremonies②

Traffic increased during the entrance of theathletes③

Traffic decreased with the entrance of theJapanese athletes④

Figure 4

Traffic Trends for the Opening Ceremony of theParalympics

Figure 5

Traffic Trend of Paralympic Games Closing Ceremony

Traffic increased during the time of the greetingby the organizer of the games⑤

Traffic increased after the closing ceremony

Compared to the traffic trend on the same day of theweek of June 21 approximately one month before theopening ceremony the traffic volume decreased considerably on the day of the opening ceremony indicating ahigh level of interest In Figure 3 the closing ceremonyof the Olympic Games (3) the traffic decreased at thebeginning of the closing ceremony and the entrance of
the Japanese athletes which may be due to the increasein the number of TV viewers
Duringceremonythe(5)

opening

ceremony (4)andclosingof the Paralympics (Figure 4 and Figure 5

respectively) although the traffic did not increase or
decrease as much as in the Olympics it did increase or
decrease according to the level of attention to each23event

Here are two of the most high‑profile traffic trends inIt can be said that there was an inverse relationship

Event Traffic Trends

the Olympic competitions

between the level of interest of the TV viewers and thetraffic231

Japan Menʼs Soccer Semifinal (August 3)

One of the most popular events was the semifinal of184

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Figure 6

Traffic Trend of Menʼs Soccer Semifinal

the Japanese menʼs soccer tournament The traffic also

232

showed characteristic changes

Another high‑profile event the final game of theAs shown in the red line in Figure 6 traffic growthslowed down before 20 : 00 when the various games

Samurai Japan Baseball Final (August 7)

Samurai Japan baseball tournament was also observed
as a high‑profile event

were being watched on TV but after 20 : 00 when theAs shown in Figure 7 a decrease in traffic wassoccer game started the growth slowed down further

observed from 19：00 during the final game during theThe decrease in traffic also indicates the degree ofgold medal game of Samurai Japan A certain amount ofattention paid to this game Then at around 20 : 45 thetraffic decreased for an extended period compared totraffic increased significantly at the end of the first half

Saturday traffic during the week of June 21 The traffic

This indicates that Internet users increased after thechange results appear to reflect the tendency of baseballfirst half when they temporarily stopped watching TV

to have longer game times than soccer and no significant

When the second half of the game started the traffic

scene changes The traffic decreased further because ofdecreased again The traffic trend shows that people

the tense matchups and the final game for the gold medal

watch TV during soccer games and use the Internetby Samurai Japan which is inversely related to theduring breaks The traffic increased temporarily during

increase in the number of TV viewers (Estimatedthe break before the extra time as well as during thebecause TV ratings are unknown ) The most significant

half time The traffic decreased more and more during

decrease in traffic was observed at the moment of theextra time as more attention was paid to the match The

victory It is assumed that this moment attracted thetraffic increased around 22 : 30 when the game ended

most attention The traffic decreased but returned to theand returned to the usual traffic trend about 30 minutes

usual at 23 : 00 The Internet traffic returned to regularlater

traffic relatively soon after the soccer game because theThe same traffic trend was observed for the high‑team lost the game However Internet traffic returned

profile soccer matches at the Olympics and the World

to regular traffic late in the day after the baseball game

Cup

because the baseball team won the gold medal and it

and the high‑profile Japanese menʼs semifinalsoccer match at the Olympics was a remarkable result

was a Saturday

Special Issue : Technology and Innovation in the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020

185

Figure 7Table 1

Traffic Trend of the Final Match of Samurai Japan

Traffic Difference Compared to the Same Day of theWeek on June 21

profile events such as the Olympics saw an increase inTV viewership and a decrease in Internet traffic The

Day ofthe week

Difference from normal(Max value)

results were particularly interesting for the opening

Opening ceremony

Friday0 298

ceremony and other high‑profile competition events

Soccer semifinal

Tuesday

0 191

where traffic fluctuations were observed for each scene

Baseball final

Saturday0 165

Not only at this Tokyo 2020 Games but also at various
other events human behavior and characteristics can beextracted from changes in Internet traffic It is expected24

Traffic Differences from Usual Times

Table 1 shows the maximum difference in trafficthat traffic trends will continue to be analyzed fromvarious perspectives in the future

between the three events the opening ceremony of theOlympics the menʼs soccer semifinal and the baseball
final compared to the same day of the week on June 21

References
()

()

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()

This table shows the attention paid to the opening
ceremony The traffic difference from the usual time
was higher for the soccer semifinal held on Tuesday thanfor the gold medal‑winning baseball game and theoverall traffic decrease was also higher indicating thehigh level of attention and interest

3．Conclusion
In this article we introduced traffic trends for theTokyo 2020 Games and found an inverse relationshipbetween traffic and TV viewership The most high‑186

Yahoo! JAPAN News, “Viewership of the Opening Ceremony : 42.5%,
Triple that of Rio.”
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/byline/suzukiyuji/20210724-00249622
The Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Opening Ceremony.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20210723/k10013155501000.
html
The Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Closing Ceremony.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20210808/k10013189101000.
html
The Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 Opening Ceremony.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20210824/k10013221141000.
html
The Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 Closing Ceremony.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20210905/k10013245281000.
html(Received February 28 2022 ; Revised March 18 2022)

THE JOURNAL OF THE INSTITUTE OF ELECTRONICS INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERSYOSHIDA Tomoya
YOSHIDA Tomoya graduated from Chuo
University in 1998 with a bachelorʼs degree inInformation Science and Technology He joined
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporationin the same year Since then he has been
engaged in the operation and development of IPnetworks He is an evangelist at NTT Communications Corporation Director of the Cloudand Network Services Department and Chairof the CONECT : COuncil for Network Efficiency by Cross‑layer Technical members

MATSUZAKI Mitsunari
MATSUZAKI Mitsunari graduated fromKumamoto National College of Technology in2017 and joined NTT Com Engineering Corporation in the same year Since then he has been
engaged in the operation and development ofFLETʼS network services Currently he works
at Cloud and Network Services Department
NTT Communications Corporation

SUZUKI Takashi
SUZUKI Takashi joined Nippon Telegraphand Telephone Corporation in 1996 2012 Joined
NTT Communications Corporation where hewas engaged in the development of domestic IP
networks and FLETʼS network services Currently he is a Cloud and Network Services
Department manager Data Analyst㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇㍇Special Issue : Technology and Innovation in the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020

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