When YouTube streamed its first exclusive NFL game for free last week, over 17 million people tuned in at the same time. For NFL fans hosting watch parties, the nightmare scenario would have been the feed stuttering or dropping mid-game. According to The Verge, YouTube even had a “Doomsday Armageddon” contingency plan in place to protect against outages. The takeaway is clear: if even Google prepares for interruptions, no business should assume it is immune to downtime.
The Reality of Downtime.
For small and mid-sized businesses, system interruptions are more than just an inconvenience. A video buffering during a football game frustrates viewers, but a server outage during business hours can halt sales, delay production, and damage client relationships. Gartner estimates the average cost of IT downtime is $5,600 per minute across industries. The actual impact varies, but the common thread is clear: downtime costs far more than prevention.
Redundancy is What Keeps You Running
The NFL broadcast demonstrated the value of redundancy. YouTube prepared backup servers and failover systems to keep the game streaming smoothly to millions of viewers worldwide. Businesses need the same mindset. Redundant internet connections, backup power, replicated servers, and tested recovery plans can safeguard operations. Without these, latency, outages, or hardware failures can disrupt productivity and put revenue at risk.
Turning Live Streaming Lessons into Business Continuity
The comparison to a football game is useful. Fans expect uninterrupted viewing, just as customers expect your services to remain online. Imagine an accounting firm unable to access tax software during filing season or a manufacturer losing network visibility on its production line for even an hour. Building continuity into IT infrastructure means planning for interruptions before they happen. Just like YouTube’s failover systems, companies should run drills and audits to confirm backups and redundancy actually work.
From Spectator to Strategist
Executives should take the lesson beyond sports. The NFL showcase highlights how critical uptime is when reputations are on the line. SMB leaders should ask: Do we have documented plans to recover from outages? Are we confident our systems can handle unexpected traffic spikes? Could our team continue operating if our primary systems went offline right now? The difference between resilience and disruption lies in preparation.
Prepare Before the Next Big Game
The NFL’s first YouTube-exclusive broadcast set a viewership record, but it was also a reminder of what’s at stake when millions are watching. For SMBs, the audience might be clients, suppliers, and employees, and even one failure could mean lost trust. Investing in business continuity and redundancy is not optional. It is the modern playbook for maintaining uptime in a digital-first world.
