CBS’ airing of Super Bowl LIII on Sunday drew an average streaming audience of 2.6 million during the game window, an increase of 31% over the streaming audience for last year’s game.
The broadcaster said the Super Bowl livestream was accessed across 7.5 million unique devices, up 20% from last year, and that viewers consumed more than 560 million total minutes of live game coverage, up 19% from last year.
Last year, the Super Bowl livestream from NBC averaged 2 million viewers and peaked with 3.1 million concurrent streams.
The livestream was available unauthenticated on CBSSports.com and the CBS Sports app across devices, NFL.com and the NFL app across devices, and Verizon Media mobile properties (including Yahoo Sports, Yahoo, AOL, AOL Sports and Tumblr). The game also was available to stream live via the CBS All Access subscription service and for authenticated users on ESPN Deportes digital properties.
CBS said the Super Bowl also helped lead to a big growth day for All Access. On Sunday, All Access passed its prior single-day records by 84% in subscriber sign-ups, 46% in unique viewers, and 76% in time spent on All Access across all content and digital platforms.
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While the streaming audience growth likely met or exceeded CBS’ expectations, the overall audience for the Super Bowl was the smallest it’s been in a decade. Super Bowl LIII – which pitted the New England Patriots against the Los Angeles Rams in the lowest scoring Super Bowl ever – drew a total viewership of 100.7 million across all platforms including digital.
According to Nielsen, the Super Bowl drew an average TV audience of about 98.2 million viewers, good enough for a 41.1 U.S. household rating. Those figures were down from the 103.5 million average and 43.1 rating posted last year.
The ratings for Super Bowl LIII were the lowest they’ve been since 2005 and the average audience was the smallest it’s been since 2008.