In a nail-biter of a Super Bowl, where every play mattered every quarter and even into overtime, Paramount Plus never messed around — and it appears the streamer brought the show through the end zone for most U.S. subscribers.
At least that was my story.
There’s a good chance that the majority of Paramount’s Plus’ 63 million subscribers tuned into the live sporting event that officially started at 6:40 PM ET, but started many hours before with multiple pre-game shows and numerous commercials.
In a world where fewer and fewer people watch live television of any kind, live sporting events (and some awards shows) are among the few things that draw people back to broadcast-style television. By some counts it is more than half of Americans no longer have cable or TV television, a fact that doesn’t matter much when you can watch whatever you want at any time via a multitude of streaming services.
However, no one wants to be the person who has no idea what Taylor Swift’s crew did during the most-watched sporting event of the year. There are bets you can make, conversations you can have, and social media you can share. What’s the point if you don’t watch the Super Bowl live?
Why stream the big show
I’m not even a sports fan, and I can unashamedly admit that I didn’t watch a single football game during the regular season before the Super Bowl. However, the Super Bowl is not just a game; it’s an event where every part, from the pre-match warm-ups and interviews to the national anthem and of course all those commercials, is analyzed and dissected. Doing all that is a sport in itself.
After recently cutting the cord, this was my first year watching the Super Bowl on Paramount Plus. I subscribe to the version of the service with advertising; I think if I had subscribed to the premium tier I might have switched to the cheaper tier just to see the Super Bowl commercials (otherwise I might have missed it Ben Affleck raps – and finished the entire game in 60 minutes).
However, with so many people streaming at once, I was concerned that my local ISP and/or Paramount Plus might not be up to the task.
Particularly cursory glances online, as the game was about to start, were not encouraging. Some on X (formerly Twitter) reported that the app was not loading and showing black screens. There are a few indications on DownDetector that it struggled significantly at the start of the match, and then got through most of the rest of it fine. When I checked Threads and a few grumbles about the losing team.
I guess I was lucky. Throughout most of the match, with the two teams rarely separated by more than three points, the serve held. At one point my wife commented on the visual quality, which, while apparently still not 4K, looked excellent on my 65-inch TCL TV.
I know streaming platforms can sometimes be a few seconds (sometimes much more) behind live broadcasts, but based on Topics I posted and the immediate responses, I think we were about as real-time as you could get. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if Paramount Plus had been about a minute behind in overtime game-winning touchdown by Patrick Mahomes.
Still there?
It was not without problems. Although the flow never broke, it accelerated several times. I never saw the flow stop, but I counted three or four brief moments where the play action was running at double speed (it was like a rush play action that no one could control). It only took a few seconds and to my surprise the audio stayed in sync without speeding up.
After the game went into overtime, Taylor and I both took refuge biting our nails, Paramount Plus decided that maybe I wasn’t watching that anymore, and asked if I was still there or if the stream should end. I panicked and almost fumbled with the remote as I rushed to press the “Yes, I’m still alive and watching” button.
The final misstep of the evening is actually a hallmark of most streaming platforms. When the game was officially ready but the trophy presentation had yet to take place, Paramount Plus tried to start the countdown to launch the new season of Halo. I jumped again to get ahead of Paramount Plus’ proactive gaming action.
Overall, it was a good test for Paramount Plus, although I wonder if it will be ready for next year when even more people will be streaming the big game through the platform.
As for me, I’m trying to figure out how to stream the next big live event: the Oscars on ABC. I’m not even sure what platform it will stream on, but I hope it has its game face.