Perform says it got nearly “half a million” “viewers”. But not all of them paid to watch at their PC - the match was also being shown for free over TV to UK armed forces posted overseas, some Odeon cinemas also screened the game via satellite and Perform reckons some pubs projected their PC display on to big screens.

It’s unclear how many actually paid to watch online and Perform won’t release detailed numbers for “commercial reasons”, but we have asked for clarification.

If, for example, 250,000 people, paid the early-bird £4.99 fee, Perform and Kentaro would have split £1.24 million. But many viewers will have paid the higher, £11.99 matchday price.

By comparison, Andy Murray’s semi-final match at this year’s Wimbledon attracted 2.1 million views via the iPlayer.

It might be historic, but there is not yet a revolution in sports broadcasting. This was, for now, a one-off borne out of Setanta’s demise.

As Perform’s executive chairman Andrew Croker tells FT.com: “This was a window of opportunity created by that particular match...It has mobilised public opinion, but you are not going to see England’s qualifying matches for Euro 2012 exclusively live on the internet.” In other words, TV will be the primary vehicle for top sports rights for at least the next three years

Perform, though, has been hired to give the Professional Squash Association’s website a revamp and add a paid-for live video service, Squash TV, which will show than 250 paid-for live and on-demand games a year.

—Update: Perform confirmed to us that the close to 500,000 figure only includes viewers of the live online stream and not viewers in 12 Odeon cinemas or armed forces abroad. The company used its post-game online survey to estimate the number of views, but still isn’t divulging how many people actually paid to watch the game online.