When Moments Can’t Be Rehearsed, Preparation Is the Only Advantage That Scales

There’s a distinct kind of pressure that only shows up when everything is live, visible, and irreversible. No second takes. No quiet failures. Instead, millions of people are watching, all of them expecting uninterrupted, high-quality entertainment.

Broadcasting live sports is the purest example of this. Viewer demand doesn’t rise gradually and rarely, if ever, follows behavior from previous events. The number of viewers surges. Instantly and without warning. One unexpected play, one controversial call, one momentum swing, even a hyped-up commercial, and traffic patterns change in seconds. For online broadcasters, those moments aren’t just exciting and traffic drivers; they are unforgiving. If your infrastructure cannot keep up, everyone notices.

This is why the world’s largest online broadcasters don’t design for averages. They design for volatility and for the unexpected.

At Fastly, that mindset has been shaped over years of supporting high-stakes, live online events. Preparation outweighs prediction at all times. Our infrastructure is built to absorb sudden spikes in an instant, route traffic intelligently at the edge, and remain resilient even when conditions shift without warning. There’s no time to react after the fact. Readiness has to be built in from the start. That kind of preparation, anticipating chaos rather than reacting to it, is what separates those who perform consistently from those who hope conditions remain favorable.

This philosophy isn’t unique to streaming infrastructure. It’s shared by elite performers operating at the highest level. The ability to execute under extreme pressure isn’t accidental — it’s the result of discipline, repetition, and an understanding that when the moment comes, instinct must take over. It’s a lesson embodied by top athletes like Jerry Rice, whose career was defined not just by performance on the biggest stage, but by preparation for moments no one could fully anticipate. Jerry Rice didn’t dominate because he waited to see how a game unfolded. He prepared so thoroughly that execution under pressure became automatic with no recalibration required when the moment arrived.

To explore that mindset more deeply, Fastly is hosting a live conversation on February 3, 2026, with Pro Football Hall of Famer Jerry Rice, who will share lessons from his storied career and offer his perspective on what it takes to perform when everything is on the line. He will also reflect on defining moments from his legendary career and the mindset that prepared him to perform on football’s biggest stage, time and again. He will be joined by Fastly’s Field CTO Omeed Nosrati to connect those principles to the realities of delivering high-stakes live streaming at scale.

If you’re responsible for delivering live online experiences and want to understand how preparation, discipline, and real-time execution come together during the biggest moments, join us for the conversation.

Register now to reserve your spot.