TV streaming grew during the Big Game, and 3 more takeaways for advertisers

The Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles delivered a riveting contest on Sunday, scoring 73 combined points in a game that went down to final seconds. The commercials outperformed too, with memorable spots including a Breaking Bad cast reunion underwritten by PopCorners and John Travolta self-parodying "Summer Nights" from Grease for T-Mobile. Then there was Rihanna’s high-flying, red-draped return to live performance after several years away from the limelight.

What a night.

We crunched the viewership numbers and learned that more people than ever streamed the Big Game this year. A lot more. Meanwhile, fewer people watched on traditional linear TV compared to last year, and the streaming audience skewed younger and more affluent.

Here are four takeaways from our Big Game data.

1. Streaming on Roku devices saw strong growth year-over-year*

The Big Game streaming reach on Roku increased 18% year-over-year and hours streamed increased 10%.¹

Many also switched their viewing habits for this year’s game. Among Roku households who watched the 2022 game on traditional linear TV (and who are still active on Roku), 12% streamed a channel carrying the 2023 Big Game instead, according to Roku automated content recognition (ACR) data.²

Even people who watched on linear TV turned to streaming afterwards. After turning off the Big Game, 26% of ACR households streamed something on Roku. These households were 60% more likely to opt for streaming after the game instead of watching something else on traditional linear TV.³

2. Linear viewership declined

Given the spike in streaming activity, it may come as little surprise that fewer people watched the game on linear TV compared to last year. Roku estimates that 78.9 million people 18 and older saw the 2023 Big Game on traditional linear TV, a year-over-year decline of 5.8%.⁴ The dip was more pronounced among younger viewers. The number of viewers aged 18 to 49 fell 8.1% compared to last year.⁵

Breaking down linear viewership in terms of ad exposure time, ad impressions were highest in the second quarter at 30%.⁶ That’s likely when viewers had settled into the game and were awaiting Rihanna’s halftime show. The next most-watched period was the 4th quarter, with 22% of all viewership, likely driven by people watching the finale of the close game.⁷

Those trends led to food & beverage advertisers attracting the greatest share of voice (SOV). In fact, Doritos reached 71% of Roku households with its Jack Harlow triangle ad, while Bud Light (Miles Teller dancing with wife Keleigh Sperry) reached 69.8%, and Hellmann's (Pete Davidson turns Jon Hamm and Brie Larson into a sandwich) reached 69.5%.⁸

3. Streamers were younger and more affluent

Big Game streamers on Roku were younger and more affluent than traditional linear TV viewers. Roku TV ACR data reveals that Roku streamers were:

• 5% more likely to be aged 25 to 54
• 11% less likely to be 65 or over
• 8% more likely to have a household income of $100K+
• 12% less likely to have a household income below $25K

Among Roku households watching the game on traditional linear TV, there were 10% more people aged 65 or older, and 11% fewer viewers aged 18 to 24.⁹

4. Philadelphia and Kansas City saw major growth in streaming

No surprise here. With the Kansas City Chiefs facing off against the Philadelphia Eagles, it’s natural that people in those demographics watched the game in droves. Roku households streaming the Big Game in the Kansas City area grew 17% in reach and 20% in hours streamed year-over-year. In the Philadelphia region, Roku households grew 24% in reach and 22% in hours streamed compared to 2022.¹⁰

Chiefs fans watched more of the game, likely so they could see their team accepting the trophy and giving interviews. The average Kansas City Roku TV household watched 28 more linear minutes of the game than the average Philadelphia Roku TV household.

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¹¯³ Roku Internal Data, 2023 | Estimates that are based on data collected from users who consented to the collection of this data.

⁴¯⁸ Roku ACR Data | Estimates that are based on data collected from users who consented to the collection of this data.

⁹ Roku Internal Data, 2023  

¹⁰ Roku Internal Data, 2023 

*Includes viewing data for all the channels that streamed the Super Bowl during gameplay including Peacock, vMVPDs (i.e. YouTube TV, Hulu Live, etc), and MVPDs (i.e. Spectrum TV, Xfinity Stream, etc). As a result, some streamers may have been watching other programming on these channels at time of game play.