A team making a surprise playoff run can see app traffic jump 10-20x versus a regular Tuesday game. Planning for "somewhat more than usual" is not a strategy.
Static content — rosters, venue info, ticket policies — should be cached at the edge. The parts that must be real-time (score, live stats) should be the only parts hitting origin servers during a live game.
Reactive autoscaling that waits for CPU thresholds to trigger is often too slow for the kind of spike a game-winning shot creates. We pre-warm infrastructure ahead of known high-leverage moments (series-clinching games, rivalry matchups).
A push notification to your full fan base is effectively a self-inflicted traffic spike. Stagger sends, and make sure your backend can handle the resulting wave of app opens.
Don't just load test average game traffic — model what a Game 7 looks like, including the notification fan-out and the final-minute score-check spike.
The teams that handle playoff traffic well aren't the ones with the biggest infrastructure budget — they're the ones who planned for the shape of the spike, not just its size.
