Super Bowl LIII disappointed, but the game still set new streaming records

While Super Bowl LIII may have been a disappointment for some (bored viewers, Rams fans, Saints fans), the big game still set a new streaming record.

Sunday’s game, which saw the New England Patriots defeat the Los Angeles Rams 13-3 in the lowest scoring Super Bowl ever, delivered an average 2.6 million viewers per minute to CBS’s official streaming broadcast. Streaming of the game was up 31 percent compared to last year’s numbers, when NBC’s broadcast of the game saw a then-record breaking average of 2 million viewers.

CBS also boasted in its release on the record breaking numbers that the Super Bowl was watched across 7.5 million unique devices, which is up 20 percent from the 2018 game. More than 560 million total minutes of the game were consumed via streaming, up 19 percent from last year’s game.

Coverage of the Super Bowl was streamed across more online platforms than ever before. Most notably, CBS did not require authentication with your cable provider to view the game, making the Super Bowl free to watch across CBSSports.com and the CBS Sports app, NFL.com and NFL apps, as well as Verizon mobile properties, like Yahoo and AOL.

With 100.7 million viewers in total, Super Bowl LIII scored the lowest TV rating since 2009. It should be noted that the total TV rating number includes the record breaking streaming viewership.

Still, while the TV ratings may have been a letdown for CBS, the network definitely scored big thanks to its streaming numbers.

In addition to the unauthenticated streams, the Super Bowl was also available on CBS All Access. CBS has been heavily promoting its over-the-top on-demand subscription streaming service, which will air exclusive original programming like the new Star Trek series’ and Twilight Zone.

According to the network, Sunday saw a record-breaking number of new subscriber signups for the services. Super Bowl Sunday also saw new single-day records for unique viewers and time spent on the platform for CBS All Access.

Besides another Patriots win, the only other safe bet for next year’s Super Bowl is that streaming will continue to break records as more and more people cut the cord.