Next Sunday, the magic happens. The Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers are going to play a field in San Francisco and give it their all. Forget basketball and baseball, football is America’s past tense and its favorite sport. Fortunately, users can watch Super Bowl 50 on Windows without a cable subscription or even a Digital TV antenna.
Super Bowl 50 differs from most other major sports in that the contracts between the National Football League and the game’s publisher do not prevent users from watching it. Partnerships with Verizon and CBS Sports will allow anyone, anywhere in the United States, to watch the game.
Here’s how to watch Super Bowl 50 on your Windows laptop, desktop or tablet.
CBS Sports
By paying for the rights to broadcast the Super Bowl each year, national broadcasters give the NFL the greatest possible reach in America, where pay television is popular but no more popular than going completely without cable. Make no mistake, if you’re planning to watch Super Bowl 50, CBS hopes you will watch it on your television.
However, some Americans don’t have a television at all. Those with televisions are generally not connected to a digital antenna to watch television broadcasts. Instead, it’s a set-top box that sits next to the TV and provides streaming video content. That’s where the CBS Sports apps and service comes in.
CBS Sports is a free service available online and on mobile. The service will stream the entirety of Super Bowl 50 on Sunday, from the kick-off to the confetti-filled awards ceremony.
In Windows 10 and Windows 8
CBS Sports It will allow users to watch Super Bowl 50 live on Windows, the app already includes score updates and news about the big game. It is completely free to download from the Windows Store. You can also keep NFL on Windows The app opens for the latest highlights and coverage directly from the league itself. This app is also free, but there will be no live streaming video of the game.
Note that the official NFL app is only for users with Windows 10 installed on their device. It’s probably not a good idea to download the free Windows 10 update to have the NFL in the Windows app that the operating system offers. If you’re still planning to upgrade, now is the perfect time to do so, but you won’t get anything but highlights, clips, and extended written coverage. CBS Sports runs on Windows 10, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1.
Windows 7 and Windows Vista
Only Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 users can access Microsoft’s Windows Store. This does not mean that those with older versions of Windows cannot enjoy the game.
CBS Sports will also stream the game directly via its website at: CBSSports.com. There you can also watch the comments before and after the Broncos/Panters showdown.
The trick here is you’ll need a sufficiently up-to-date browser and video add-on to support streaming. We don’t yet know which addon Stream will be using this year. It’s not a bad idea to try streaming during the preview to make sure you have a browser that works with the stream and with the right plugins. This gives you time to fix everything before kick-off in case problems arise. Modern versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome should work fine. Microsoft Edge, the browser included in Windows 10, has all kinds of issues, so if you’re determined not to download the free CBS Sports app for any reason, don’t count on using it to stream from the website.
before the game
Before the game, don’t forget to test your respective Windows device to make sure everything is working for your Super Bowl 50 broadcast. Also, keep in mind that streaming video online is a heavy bandwidth overhead.
Do not connect your Windows device to a smartphone or tablet to use internet access for streaming. You want the highest possible fidelity and this requires a very good connection and a relatively large data plan. Most data plans – even when sharing a connection with a Windows laptop – do not offer unlimited connections. This game will take a long time, you just don’t want to kill your data share for the whole month of February trying to watch it.
You don’t want to download large files over your network when trying to set up streaming. For best results, connect your Windows PC directly to your router if possible. If you have the necessary connections, it’s not a bad idea to connect your PC to a television or large monitor with an HDMI cable.
Good luck watching Super Bowl 50 on your Windows device. The game begins on February 7 at 6:30 PM Eastern Standard Time.
