The NBC network’s first-ever live stream of the NFL American football Super Bowl attracted 2.1 million unique viewers on Sunday, February 5, a record for online coverage of a single-game sports event in the United States.
The online audience beat the previous US record of 1.1 million users for an NCAA Division One US college basketball game between Brigham Young University and Florida, streamed by the CBS network in 2010.
Viewers watched online coverage of this year’s Super Bowl for an average of 39 minutes. NBC’s stream allowed viewers to change camera angles, and USA Today reported that there had been 1.8 million user-generated online camera switches.
The Super Bowl Half-Time Show and commercials shown on the television broadcast of the game were not shown automatically on the online feed. Viewers could choose to see the commercials on-demand.
NBC’s main network attracted a record US television audience of 111.3 million viewers for live coverage of the game, according to audience measurement company Nielsen Media Research.