• by Wayne Friedman , February 12, 2021

Although TV station markets Kansas City and Tampa Bay posted expected high local TV Nielsen-measured Super Bowl viewing — since their teams were in the big game — rising activity in TV streaming was elsewhere.

Cleveland and Denver outperformed anticipated viewing streaming results, according to Conviva, a digital video analytics company. Cleveland over-indexed 183%, while Denver was up 141%. Cleveland's sister Ohio city, Columbus, grew 136% over expectations.

The streaming platform with the most Super Bowl “streaming attempts” included Roku (a 41% share); Amazon Fire TV (24%), Apple TV (12%) and Samsung TV (8%).

The Roku number is in line, roughly, with what the set-top-box/smart TV platform anticipated before the game — 42% of its users would opt to stream the game instead of watching it on linear TV (44%).

Still, looking at traditional TV viewing through more expected local TV station affiliates easily won the day.

The biggest market share for “Super Bowl LV” on CBS went to Kansas City, with a massive 59.9 Nielsen local rating. Tampa-St. Petersburg came in third, with a 52.3 number.

In second place was Boston, at a 57.6 rating. That’s the market where Tom Brady, quarterback on the Super Bowl-winning Tampa Bay team, played for two decades with the New England Patriots.

The year before, for “Super Bowl LIV” on Fox, Kansas City — which won that year — got a 55.7 Nielsen local TV number. San Francisco, home to the losing 49ers, was at a 48.6 rating.