Peloton’s livestreamed workout breaks online class attendance records

It’s clear that Peloton didn’t suffer much after airing that really strange holiday ad back in December. 

As first spotted by Bloomberg, over 23,000 people virtually attended one of Peloton’s live cycling classes — which the company claims set a record for the most people streaming a single live class. 

The record-breaking class was led by Robin Arzón, Peloton’s vice president and head instructor, who broadcasted the 30-minute Pop Ride right from her … living room. 

Peloton confirmed to Mashable that, in addition to Pop Ride being “the largest live workout count of any class ever,” it also beat the company’s previous record of 19,000 riders in its 2019 Turkey Burn class (also taught by Robin).

She’s not the only one leading workouts from home, though. Several Peloton instructors began filming and streaming both fitness and wellness content from their homes on Tuesday due to the coronavirus outbreak. 

If you’re wondering why it took Peloton this long to make the move, it’s because the company originally took alternative precautionary measures when the outbreak first started to spread: Studios were closed to the public, with filming for classes restricted to just the instructor and a very small production crew. However, that shift also forced it to scale back on the number of live classes broadcasted per day.

This setup worked until Peloton confirmed one of its employees tested positive for Covid-19 earlier this month, causing the company to temporarily suspend broadcasting live from its New York and London studios until April 30. Instead, those with a Peloton subscription would have to resort to using its huge catalogue of on-demand classes.

But it looks like Peloton got things back up and running a little earlier than planned by allowing its instructors to stream right from the comfort of their homes. 

And the “Live From Home” debut was clearly a hit. Although, I’m honestly very curious if people were more interested to see the inside of Robin’s home than they were to take the class.