A 16-Day Traffic Experiment in France
When the Olympic flame was extinguished at the Stade de France on August 11, 2024, it ended 16 days of competition that saw 329 events across 32 sports, with over 10,000 athletes from 204 nations. While the medals were the headline, the event also offered a unique, real-time look at how a global spectacle reshapes Internet consumption patterns. Cloudflare’s network, spanning data centers in over 330 cities, provides a broad vantage point for observing these shifts in digital behavior.
The closing ceremony, like the opening event before it, pulled French residents away from their screens. However, the effect was notably less dramatic. As the ceremony began around 19:15 UTC on August 11, national Internet traffic fell by as much as 14% compared to the previous week—a significant dip, but smaller than the 20% plunge witnessed during the opening ceremony. Throughout the three-hour event, traffic remained 3% to 14% below normal levels.
The pattern of dips and recoveries during the ceremony is telling. Traffic consistently rose during band performances, official speeches, and particularly during Yseult’s rendition of “My Way.” This contrasts sharply with the opening ceremony, where Celine Dion’s performance caused a severe traffic drop, indicating that viewers were glued to their TVs for that specific moment rather than reaching for their phones.
Daily traffic in France during the entire Olympic period showed a similar pattern of disruption. The most significant full-day drop, 8%, occurred on July 28. Beyond that peak, daily traffic remained relatively stable, with a smaller 3% decline observed on August 8.
The Shift to Mobile Intensifies
The Olympic period accelerated a trend already underway in France: a move toward mobile-first Internet access. Weekly mobile device traffic share, which sat at 49% in mid-June, climbed to between 53% and 54% after the Games began. This increase is likely attributed to two factors: an influx of tourists who typically rely on mobile connections, and French residents on vacation with less access to traditional desktop setups. The uptick was particularly noticeable on weekdays, where mobile share was clearly higher after July 26.
The Great Parisian Exodus
While tourists flocked to Paris, many residents appear to have done the opposite. Data from the Île-de-France region shows that Parisians began leaving before the Games even started. Traffic in the region during the first week of the event dropped by as much as 6% on July 30 compared to the previous week. This exodus deepened as the Games progressed.
The aggregate numbers paint a stark picture. Weekly traffic in the region fell 8% during the opening week and remained stable the following week. By the final week of the Olympics, traffic in Île-de-France had plummeted to 23% lower than the week of June 30, which had been the region’s peak traffic period in recent weeks. The city of light was, for a time, digitally dimmed.
Global Viewing Habits by Nation
France was not alone in seeing its digital behavior altered by specific events. Across the globe, national traffic dips served as a proxy for audience engagement, with different countries showing distinct peaks of interest.
United States
Simone Biles proved to be a bigger draw than the opening ceremony. During her events on July 26-28, U.S. Internet traffic dipped significantly. On July 28, traffic was already 4% lower than the previous week at 10:00 UTC during her beam routine, before dropping 6% during her floor and vault exercises later that hour.
Other notable U.S. viewing moments included a 4% drop on July 29 during Ryan Murphy’s bronze medal swim in the men’s 100m backstroke final. The final Saturday of the Games saw a 7% decrease during the women’s football gold medal match against Brazil, followed by a 6% dip when the men’s basketball team faced France for gold.
France
For the host nation, swimmer Léon Marchand was the primary driver of offline behavior. His gold medal and Olympic record in the men’s 400-meter individual medley on July 28 caused a 17% traffic drop at 18:30 UTC—a decline matching that of the closing ceremony’s peak. The effect spilled into other swimming sessions:
- July 29, 19:45 UTC, a 14% drop during the Women’s 100m Backstroke Semifinals featuring Yohann Ndoye-Brouard.
- July 30, 19:00 UTC, a 12% drop during the Men’s 200m Butterfly Semifinals with Léon Marchand.
- July 31, 18:30-20:30 UTC, 7% to 10% drops during the Men’s 200m Butterfly final.
- August 1, 18:45 UTC, an 8% drop during swimming semifinals and finals.
Even new events captured national attention. The debut of breakdancing on August 9 caused a 10% traffic dip at 14:30 UTC. The following day, a 7% drop occurred between 18:45 and 21:00 UTC during the B-Boys gold medal battle and the basketball final. The women’s marathon on August 11 also saw an 8% drop at 07:00 UTC.
Great Britain
British audiences were heavily invested from the start. The first weekend of the Games saw a 10% traffic decrease on July 28 at 15:00 UTC. While the second weekend was slightly less disruptive, traffic again dropped significantly on the final day of competition, August 11.
Australia
Australia’s engagement was tied to its swimming successes. Mollie O’Callaghan’s victory in the women’s 200m freestyle on July 29 caused traffic to drop 5%—a larger fall than during the opening ceremony. The nation’s gold in the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay on August 1 saw an even bigger impact, with traffic dipping 10% at 18:45 UTC. Sifan Hassan’s marathon win for the Netherlands also affected Australian traffic, which dropped 7% on August 11 at 07:00 UTC.
Other Markets
Japan: The most significant drops occurred around wrestling and artistic swimming. Fumita Kenichiro’s gold in the men’s Greco-Roman 60kg final on August 6 coincided with a 12% traffic drop at 18:15 UTC. On August 10, Japan saw a 14% dip after 17:30 UTC, coinciding with gold in the women’s javelin throw and the men’s breaking quarterfinals.
Italy: Alice D’Amato’s historic first-ever gold in artistic gymnastics caused a 5% traffic drop at 10:45 UTC.
Netherlands: A busy morning of competition on July 28 saw traffic plummet 20%. Similarly, Sifan Hassan’s gold in the women’s marathon on August 11 brought a 16% drop at 08:15 UTC.
South Korea: The women’s archery team’s gold on July 28 triggered an 8% drop, while a 9% decrease occurred on August 7 during Park Taejoon’s Taekwondo gold medal match.
Brazil: The most significant dip came early, on July 27, when traffic fell 15% during the men’s and women’s 400m freestyle events. Later in the Games, surfing events with Gabriel Medina and Tatiana Weston-Webb caused drops of 5% and 8%, respectively.
Cape Verde: David Pina’s bronze in boxing, the nation’s first Olympic medal, caused a 12% traffic drop at 15:00 UTC on August 4.
How the Paris 2024 Games Reshaped DNS Traffic
In the run-up to the Olympics, DNS request data from Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 resolver showed France leading interest in official Olympic websites with 24% of traffic, followed by the UK (20%) and the US (17%). Once the Games began, the US overtook France and held the top spot throughout the event.
By the end, the top 10 countries by DNS traffic to official Olympic websites were:
- United States: 18%
- France: 16%
- United Kingdom: 10%
- Germany: 7%
- Brazil: 6%
- Australia: 5%
- Canada: 2%
- Japan: 2%
- India: 2%
- Russian Federation: 2%
The US took the lead a few days before the opening ceremony. France slipped to third place on July 27—the first full day of competition—and again after August 2, though it climbed back to #2 the day after the closing ceremony. The UK held #3 before the event but fell to #4 on August 1. Australia reached #3 on July 29, while Brazil’s best days at #3 were July 24-25 and July 30-August 1.
Worldwide DNS traffic to official Olympic sites peaked during the first full week of events, with a 637% increase compared to the pre-Olympic week. Germany, Spain, India, Italy, and Russia bucked the trend, seeing their highest traffic in the final week. On a daily basis, August 2 was the busiest day globally, followed by August 4 and 5.
Traffic patterns for the top three countries reveal memorable sporting moments:
- United States: July 30 (US women’s gymnastics team gold and multiple swimming medals), July 29, and August 5.
- France: July 31 (Léon Marchand’s gold in the 200m butterfly), July 29, and August 1.
- Germany: July 27 (Lukas Maertens’ gold in the 400m freestyle), August 8, and August 7.
Sports news and streaming surge
DNS traffic to sports news sites during the two Olympic weeks surpassed every other week since June, including the UEFA Euro 2024 period. Olympic weeks drew 17% more traffic than the pre-Olympic week and 4% more than Euro 2024’s best week. The highest-traffic days for sports news were August 10, August 3, and July 28.
NBC’s official broadcaster sites saw a dramatic boost, with global DNS traffic rising by up to 1,640% on July 28 compared to the prior week. Streaming platforms covering the Games, namely Peacock TV (US and Canada) and Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max (Europe), experienced weekly DNS traffic growth of up to 65%. Daily traffic peaked on July 30, with Peacock leading Max in volume.
Breaking’s Olympic debut generated viral moments—most notably Rachael Gunn’s performance—that drove a 215% DNS traffic spike to breaking-related websites on August 9. Olympic sponsors also saw early-event bumps; overall sponsor traffic peaked on July 29, with Samsung gaining momentum in the opening days and Airbnb on July 25, just before the ceremony.
Attackers Target the Olympic Spotlight
High-profile events attract DDoS activity well beyond political targets. In July, Cloudflare blocked more DDoS attacks against Olympic partner websites than in any other month of 2024. Daily attack requests hit 200 million, and in just the first 11 days of August, 90 million DDoS requests were blocked—more than in any full pre-Olympic month.
The largest spike occurred on July 29, with three sponsor sites hit simultaneously and 84 million DDoS-related requests in one day. The most intense attack peaked at 190,000 requests per second at 10:20 UTC. A more extreme but short-lived attack on August 11, the final day, targeted a French transportation site, reaching over 500,000 requests per second for four minutes from 05:09 UTC.
These attacks align with recurring patterns in Cloudflare’s DDoS reporting: most are brief. While 500,000 rps isn’t extreme by Cloudflare’s scale, it can be overwhelming for unprepared sites. Across all Olympic partner websites using Cloudflare, total requests (legitimate and attack traffic) reached 4.2 billion in July—27% more than May and 11% more than June.
Email Volumes Spike, Malicious Rates Dip
Cloudflare’s Cloud Email Security processed over 1.7 million emails with “Olympics” or “Paris 2024” in the subject between January 2024 and August 11. More than half of those (890,000) arrived between July 26 and August 11, with the busiest day—150,000 messages—on the opening ceremony date. The week of July 22-28 saw a 304% increase over the previous week and a 3,111% jump from the busiest week in January.
Despite the volume surge, the share of spam and malicious messages during the Olympics was lower than before: over 6,200 spam emails (0.7%) and just 248 malicious or phishing emails (0.07%). In contrast, since January 1, spam and malicious rates for Olympic-related emails have run at 1.3% and 0.1%, respectively. Malicious rates peaked at 0.6% in the week of May 6, dipping before a slight rise to 0.4% on July 8. During the late-July volume spike, only 0.05% were malicious.
Biles and Snoop Dogg as Phishing Bait
Simone Biles generated the most athlete-related emails, with over 160,000 messages since July 1, though almost none were malicious (0.01%) and only 0.5% were spam. Fully 97% of those arrived after July 26. Other top athlete names by email volume included Katie Ledecky, Imane Khelif, Novak Djokovic, Steph Curry, and Léon Marchand.
Among celebrity attendees, Snoop Dogg led, outranking Martha Stewart, Flava Flav, and Jason Kelce. Since July, over 6,600 emails have mentioned Snoop Dogg, with 40 spam (0.6%) and 4 malicious (0.06%).
A Glimpse Ahead to LA 2028
The handover at the closing ceremony—featuring Simone Biles, Tom Cruise, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers—drove a 1,600% DNS traffic surge to the official LA 2028 website on August 11.
The Paris 2024 Games underscore the internet’s gravitational pull toward marquee events, from DNS and streaming spikes to targeted cyber threats. The 2024 Summer Paralympics (August 28-September 8) and LA 2028 will offer the next tests of that pattern.
