All the ways to watch the Super Bowl
Regardless of whether you’ve cut the cord, there are many ways to watch the big game.
Super Bowl 55 will occur this Sunday between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Kansas City Chiefs. NFL's biggest event of the year is a television phenomenon that goes beyond just sports, be it million-dollar-commercials, the half-time concert or just an excuse to chow down on chicken wings. It used to be that the only way to watch was to either have a cable or satellite subscription, or venture out to your local sports bar (Remember bars?). Fortunately, you now have a plethora of viewing options, including ways to stream.
Where and when?
Super Bowl 2021 will take place at the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay, Florida on February 7th. The kick-off time is set for 6:30pm ET / 3:30pm PT. It'll be televised on CBS as well as ESPN Deportes in Spanish.
How to watch with cable or satellite TV
Obviously, if you subscribe to either cable or satellite, you'll have no problem watching the Super Bowl this Sunday on your TV. This is good news if you'd rather not bother with signing up for a service online, or if you have a spotty internet connection.
How to stream the Super Bowl
Cord-cutters have plenty of ways to watch the big game this Sunday. One of them is through a live TV streaming service, as long as it carries CBS. Thankfully, a lot of them do. YouTube TV ($65 a month), AT&T TV ($70-plus a month) and Fubo TV ($65-plus a month) all include CBS. Alternately, you can also watch the game through CBS All Access (starting at $6 a month), whose name is changing next month to Paramount Plus.
If you don't currently subscribe to any of these services and want to watch the game for free, you can sign up to one for a seven-day free trial period just to watch the game, and then cancel afterward. The one exception here is AT&T TV, which currently doesn’t offer free trials.
We should note, however, that those with Hulu with Live TV ($65 a month) might be out of luck, as Hulu has lost the distribution rights to a number of CBS affiliates late last year. Similarly, Sling TV doesn’t have CBS in its lineup.
If you don't have pay-TV or a streaming service
What if you don’t want to sign up for pay TV or a streaming service? You're in luck: You can watch the Super Bowl this Sunday too, thanks to a few different livestreams. You can watch the game for free on CBSSports.com as well as through the CBS Sports app, which is accessible via your phone or through a streaming device such as Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV or Google TV.
You can also watch the game through the NFL app or the Yahoo Sports app. (Yahoo is owned by Engadget's parent company, Verizon.) Of course, you could also use an indoor antenna with your TV to simply watch the free over-the-air broadcast.
International viewers can use NFL's international game pass streaming service, which has a seven-day free trial. If you’d rather not go through that, however, check out this guide to see if your country has a local Super Bowl broadcast partner.
What about 4K?
Last year, Fox made history by broadcasting the Super Bowl in 4K and HDR for the first time (it was still shot in 1080p and HDR, but was upscaled to 4K in the broadcast). However, that is not an option this year because CBS Sports is at the helm and has less experience with 4K broadcasts. CBS Sports also cited “production limitations” caused by COVID-19 as a reason why it couldn’t broadcast the game in 4K.
