Super Bowl XVI online: for the first time legally

While the DoJ has taken down a number of illegal video streaming sites ahead of Super Bowl XLVI, folks who might have access to the Internet but not to a television on Sunday, Feb. 5 need not worry: you can still watch the Super Bowl online, and this year, it's easy.

The reason viewing the Super Bowl online, on the Internet, is easy in 2012 is because for the first time, it is going to be legitimately live-streamed. NBC is the network that is broadcasting the Super Bowl, and football fans should rejoice at that news. NBCSports.com and the NFL have streamed games online since 2008 with SNF Extra, which is NBC Sports' exclusive video adjunct. Already this playoff season, NBC has streamed the Pro Bowl and the wild-card round.

However, until this playoff season, no NFL playoff games had even been legitimately streamed online.

You read that correctly: until this playoff season. NBC broadcast the wild-card playoff round this season, and it streamed that round live on SNF Extra. We sampled the video feed, and although you might have expected higher ratings and viewership than for a normal football game, we were able to watch the vide stream without an issue. There were no drop-outs, stalls, or stutters.

NBC did not participate in any of the other playoff rounds. However, the network also live-streamed the Pro Bowl, held just last week. We did not attempt to watch any of that; let's be honest here: the Pro Bowl is perhaps the most boring and poorest played of all the all-star games for pro sports because football is a brutal sport, and none of those star players want to torn ligament or worse to end their careers. It's been a complaint for some time.

That said: viewership was hardly expected to be stellar, and thus it would also not have been a good test of the streaming capabilities of NBC.

In case you're wondering, SNF Extra provides additional viewing angles, and unless NBC changes things up, it also provides the same advertising as the TV feed does. Thus, you should --- unless, as we said, NBC changes things up for the Super Bowl --- miss any of the highly touted Super Bowl ads.

Will NBC be able to keep up with the huge audience that always shows up for the Super Bowl? That's still an open question. As we said, we had no issues with the wild-card, but the Super Bowl is another animal.

What if you've only got a mobile device? Well, Verizon and its NFL Mobile app will also stream NBC's playoff broadcasts for the first time on a mobile platform.

Ah, and what if you don't have Verizon? Assuming you have a Flash-capable Web browser, you should be able to see the video from the website, embedded in your Web browser. Once again, that's for Flash-capable Web browsers (we're speaking directly to you, Apple, although since Adobe has given up on Flash on mobile devices, you (Apple) won anyway).

Why is NBC being so altruistic? Well, they're not. They believe that every set of eyes watching a tablet or laptop is really using that device to get extra angles on the coverage. In other words, for them, it's a bonus.

Did you really think they were being altruistic?

Past Coverage
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

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