Live Sports Streaming Remains the Biggest Challenge for ISPs: Netskrt Survey

Live sporting events continue to present the biggest streaming challenge for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) worldwide, and spikes in traffic during American football games cause the most worry, Netskrt announced today. Those were two of the findings from Netskrt’s State of the ISP Industry Survey.

Conducted between May and August 2025, the survey garnered detailed responses from professionals at 55 global ISPs in order to better understand the way major events impact network performance, customer satisfaction, and operational priorities.

“These findings put real numbers on what we’ve long known,” said Netskrt Cofounder and CRO Lars Cavi. “Live sports push service providers to their limits. ISPs need tools that allow them to efficiently handle the traffic spikes associated with live sports, which can often be 5-10 times daily averages. Netskrt was built to seamlessly handle traffic peaks for ISPs while delivering the quality of experience viewers expect.”

The survey found that live sports streaming is by far the most stressful content category for ISPs:
78% of respondents said sports cause them the most concern when it comes to streaming reliability.
Among those, 70% pointed to American football as the most challenging sport to deliver, but international football is quickly approaching similar levels. 
Nearly 75% of ISPs report their network traffic spikes by up to 200% during live sporting events, amplifying congestion and buffering risks.

More than half of ISPs identified traffic congestion and buffering as their most common technical hurdles during live streams. A full third said buffering alone was their top issue, further emphasizing the pressure live sports place on network capacity and QoE. ISPs do not know directly when buffering occurs; they only learn of it when they field complaints from their users.

ISPs reported a few tangible improvements:
Many ISPs appreciate knowing which CDN carries which content, as that helps them to optimize performance.
77% found Netskrt’s monitoring function to be highly or moderately beneficial in helping them maintain visibility and control over live traffic.
Over one-third of respondents who had implemented Netskrt said customer complaints decreased after they did so.

ISP Survey webpage: https://www.netskrt.io/survey-state-of-isp-industry/