Felix Baumgartner skydive sets record for YouTube live streams too
Among the several records broken by ultra-skydiver Felix Baumgartner on Sunday, there was one that may have been unexpected: most viewers to a live event ever on YouTube.
The highest skydive in history, during which Baumgartner became the first free-falling human to break the sound barrier, racked up 8 million simultaneous views on YouTube.
The live stream of the event lasted more than two hours, showing the relatively slow accent by balloon to about 24 miles above Earth, then the jump that hit speeds as high as 834 mph and took a little more than 10 minutes.
“We congratulate Felix Baumgartner and the entire Red Bull Stratos team for their successful mission, and for creating a livestream with the most concurrent views ever on YouTube,” said Tim Katz, YouTube’s sports partnerships manager, on the video service’s blog.
YouTube didn’t say which live stream previously held the record, but for comparison, one of the most watched live events prior to the skydive came during the recent Summer Olympics, when half a million people tuned in at the same time, said a spokesman.
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