Super Bowl scores streaming audience spike despite lower ratings

Last Sunday’s Super Bowl LV was the most livestreamed NFL game ever, according to CBS Sports, even though ratings for the big game declined.

CBS Sports said the Super Bowl livestream saw an average minute audience of 5.7 million viewers, which it said was the highest average minute audience for any NFL game and was up 65% compared to the Super Bowl in 2020. The company also said that Super Bowl LV was the first NFL game in history to deliver more than one billion total streaming minutes.

The livestream was available unauthenticated on CBSSports.com and the CBS Sports app across devices, ESPN Deportes digital properties across devices, NFL digital properties across devices, and on mobile via Buccaneers, Chiefs, Yahoo Sports and other Verizon Media mobile properties. The game also was available to stream live via the CBS All Access subscription service and for authenticated users on CBS digital properties.

CBS said the Super Bowl provided a boost for its digital platforms. For Sunday, the company is claiming record-breaking day on CBS All Access in terms of new subscriber sign-ups, unique devices, streams and time spent.

According to Conviva, Roku was the most popular platform for consumers streaming the game. Roku’s share of streaming attempts for Super Bowl viewing was 41%, followed by Amazon Fire TV at 24%, Apple TV at 12% and Samsung TV at 8%.

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CBS said the Super Bowl posted a total audience delivery of 96.4 million viewers across all platforms, including the CBS Television Network, CBS Sports and NFL digital properties, Buccaneers and Chiefs mobile properties, Verizon Media mobile properties and ESPN Deportes television and digital properties.

According to CNBC, it’s the smallest audience for the Super Bowl since 2007.

Samba TV’s data suggested that viewership for the Super Bowl and all of its associated programming was down year over year and that household tune-in for the game itself was down 15% from 37.6 million in 2020 to 32 million households on Sunday night.

The company said the Super Bowl LV pre-game show was down 13%, the Super Bowl was down 15% and the Super Bowl LV Halftime show was down 14%.