In the second year the Super Bowl has been streamed online, viewership has grown sharply — even if it’s still barely a blip compared to traditional TV viewership. According to CBS, its stream of Super Bowl XLVII garnered 3 million unique viewers, compared to the 2.1 million that NBC reported last year. Unsurprisingly, CBS says this is the largest audience the CBS Sports site has ever seen, and it’s a significant number for any single streamed event.
Super Bowl online streaming viewership grows to 3 million in second year
is a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.
The Olympics, one of the biggest live viewing opportunities, had 31.5 unique computer-based online viewers in the first week of its events — with the most popular individual events garnering around a million (non-unique) streams apiece — but it’s difficult to directly compare it to other streams, both because it’s a protracted global competition and since most events were limited to cable or satellite subscribers. What is clear, however, is that Super Bowl viewership is still overwhelmingly offline. 164.1 million people overall (another Super Bowl record) watched all or part of the game, according to CBS’ estimates.
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