YouTube revises Chiefs-Chargers audience, increasing it by 2.4 million

If at first you don’t succeed, run the numbers again.

YouTube has revised the viewership total from last Friday’s Chiefs-Chargers game. Via Sean Keeley of AwfulAnnouncing.com, the streamer increased the per-minute audience from 17.3 million globally to 19.7 million globally.

“We encountered an internal technical issue where a subset of legitimate views were not categorized as actual views,” YouTube said. “As a result, the viewership numbers for this game were undercounted. We’ve revalidated the numbers with Nielsen, after providing them with the updated first-party data. This is an unfortunate situation and we’ll do better next time.”

The domestic audience increased from 16.2 million to 18.3 million, and the international audience moved from 1.1 million to 1.2 million.

The development was met with skepticism in some circles. Said Fox exec Michael Mulvihill, who has not been bashful about criticizing the process of measuring the numbers for YouTube’s first-ever free worldwide stream, “So what are we going to do here folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.”

The revised numbers still fall far short of the all-time streaming record set last Christmas by a pair of Netflix games, both of which exceeded 24 million on the paid service.

And, yes, the sudden change seems fishy. To say the least. But it helps the NFL, especially as the league’s ability to pull the plug on all current broadcast deals after the 2029 season creeps closer — and as the next wave of contracts relies on having the biggest numbers possible.