More people than ever reacted to last night’s Super Bowl using social media, according to reports from a number of tech companies. Facebook today says that this year’s Super Bowl was the biggest yet on its social network, and YouTube says more people than ever before watched ads and teaser videos on its site. Meanwhile, Twitter set a new record for Super Bowl tweets.

Across the web, top tech companies, including also YouTube parent Google and TiVo, analyzed how well the big game and its popular TV commercials performed on their networks, revealing trends related to the content and other details about how people watched and engaged with others during the game.

Facebook: The “Most-Talked-About” Super Bowl Ever

This year, Facebook launched a real-time experience on its site, offering fans a dedicated page where they could see, among other things, posts from friends and others in their network, photos and videos from new outlets, posts from the NFL and team players, and reactions from others around the world in the Facebook Super Bowl page’s “live feed.”

This site appears to have helped fuel a big jump in user engagement, the company reports today. Last year, more than 50 million unique users joined the conversation on Facebook. This year, more than 65 million participated.

In total, users shared 265 million posts, comments and likes, which soared during the game’s final moments to more than 1.3 million unique “People Per Minute” who were posting, commenting, and liking content related to the Super Bowl, says Facebook.

That “People Per Minute” metric is something Facebook examined in more detail this year, as competition with Twitter heats up around real-time social conversation.

For the 2015 Super Bowl, Facebook also revealed a number of related stats, including the game’s “top social moments,” “top five states,” “most mentioned players,” and more.

They are, as follows:

Top Social Moments

1. New England Patriots win Super Bowl XLIX (1.36 million people-per-minute)
2. Katy Perry’s “Firework” finale at halftime (1.02 million people-per-minute)
3. Russell Wilson TD pass to Doug Baldwin gives Seattle 24-14 lead in the third quarter (701,000 people-per-minute)
4. Malcolm Butler’s game-deciding interception on the goal line with less than 30 seconds remaining (676,000 people-per-minute)
5. Jermaine Kearse’s catch late in the fourth quarter to set up a dramatic finish (656,000 people-per-minute)

Top Five States (Where Level Of Conversation on Facebook Was Highest)

1. New Hampshire
2. Rhode Island
3. Maine
4. Massachusetts
5. Washington

Top Five Countries
1. US
2. Canada
3. Mexico
4. Australia
5. Ireland

Most Mentioned Players

1. Tom Brady
2. Marshawn Lynch
3. Russell Wilson
4. Rob Gronkowski
5. Malcolm Butler

Top Five Demos
1. Women 25-34
2. Women 35-44
3. Women 18-24
4. Men 25-34
5. Men 18-24

Twitter: The Most-Tweeted Super Bowl

On Twitter, the growth and engagement around user conversations wasn’t quite as dramatic as on Facebook. However, the company announced it saw a solid 28.4 million tweets about Super Bowl XLIX yesterday, setting a new record for Super Bowl tweets, even if only a slight increase over last year’s 24.9 million tweets. However, in 2013, Twitter saw 24.1 million tweets – so at least this year’s jump in tweets is larger than before.

That being said, with the Super Bowl being more of a U.S. obsession, the tweet count alone didn’t break a record for most tweets ever, or even the most sports-related tweets. (For comparison’s sake, the World Cup’s finale saw 32.1 million tweets.)

Twitter also revealed the moments that generated the biggest peaks in conversation during the live telecast, measured in tweets per minute (TPM):

1. Malcolm Butler (@Mac_BZ) intercepts a pass by Russell Wilson (@DangeRussWilson) 1 yard from the goal line with 20 seconds left in the game: 395,000 TPM
2. @Patriots defeat @Seahawks to become #SB49 champions: 379,000 TPM
3. End of @KatyPerry’s halftime performance: 284,000 TPM

The company analyzed top players, too, and it offered an interactive map of the U.S. showing how the game played out on Twitter.

Google/YouTube: More Super Bowl Videos Viewed Than Ever

Google, meanwhile, reported on what Super Bowl fans were searching for across the web and what they were watching on YouTube. Users on Google were searching for content from their second screens, whether those were laptops, tablets or smartphones, in record numbers.

“People watched more game-day ads and teaser videos on YouTube than ever before,” the company announced this morning on its official blog.

This year, YouTube also rolled out its first-ever halftime show to keep users engaged further with its network during the big game, and it showcased all the Super Bowl ads on its “AdBlitz 2015″ website, which allowed viewers to watch, vote and share their favorites.

According to the data released this morning by Google, people this year spent nearly 4 million hours watching game-day ads and other teasers videos on YouTube, up from 2.2 million hours last year.

Elsewhere, Google searches reflected users’ interest in getting real-time updates from the game, as well as their desire to get certain questions answered. For example, many asked Google “Why did John Travolta call Idina ‘Adele?’” as well as “How long will it take Idina to sing the National Anthem?” 

They also searched for top players, including Tom Brady, Marshawn Lynch and Russell Wilson, and for details on thehalftime show. At one point Katy Perry’s performance appeared to reference NBC’s old “The More You Know” PSAs. Google says that searches for the phrase “the more you know” then spiked 190x for 10 minutes afterwards.

Google’s YouTube division didn’t release details on how well its own halftime show did, which was created with help from 25 YouTube creators. But the videos posted on AdBlitz’s channel pulled from the show have anywhere from 1,600+ to 10,600+ views at present.

It seems, perhaps, that YouTube users were more interested in watching the ads. The company ranked those commercials that were most popular on its network, which revealed that Anheuser-Busch won the two top spots:

1. Budweiser: 2015 Budweiser Super Bowl Commercial “Lost Dog”

2. Budweiser #BestBudsBud Light: Bud Light Super Bowl 2015 Commercial – Real Life PacMan #UpForWhatever

3. T-Mobile: #KimsDataStash | T-Mobile Commercial

4. BMW: BMW i3 – “Newfangled Idea”

5. Snickers: SNICKERS® – “The Brady Bunch”

6. Clash of Clans: Revenge (Official TV Commercial)

7. Mercedes-Benz: Mercedes-Benz “Fable” Commercial :60

8. NOMORE.org: NO MORE’s Official Super Bowl Ad: 60 Second

9. Hyundai: Welcome to the New Age | Hyundai Canada | The Big Game XLIX

10. Toyota: How Great I Am | Presented by The Bold New Camry | Toyota

TiVo Ranked The Ads And Moments, Too

Finally, TiVo offered its own take on how the ads performed, gathering its data not from online plays but rather from its viewership data based on actual commercial retention relative to overall program viewership.

This year, notes TiVo, there were fewer beer ads, but more insurance and movie ads.

By looking at these numbers, the list of popular ads ranked a little differently than YouTube’s:

1. Budweiser – ‘Lost Dog’ (Song by Sleeping at Last)
2. Joyful Heart Foundation – ‘911 Delivery’
3. Doritos – ‘Middle Seat’
4. Nationwide Insurance – ‘Invisible Mindy Kaling’
5. Supercell: Clash of Clans – ‘Revenge’ Feat with Liam Neeson
6. FIAT 500X – ‘Blue Pill’
7. Snickers – ‘The Brady Bunch’ featuring Danny Trejo
8. Avocados From Mexico – ‘First Draft Ever’
9. Coca-Cola – #MakeItHappy
10. Nissan – ‘With Dad’ (Song by Harry Chapin)

TiVo also analyzed the top re-watched moments from the game, and the halftime show, finding that the latter’s viewership numbers exceeded that of the overall game for the fifth year in a row. The top game moments, meanwhile, says TiVo were as follows: “(1) 10:04 p.m. ET the fight in the final seconds of the game, (2) 10:00 p.m. ET Tom Brady and Richard Sherman’s reaction to Malcolm Butler’s goal-line interception and (3) 09:56 p.m. ET Jermaine Kearse’s crazy catch.”

We’ve gotten to the point where pretty much every social media and advertising company has to release its own report about Super Bowl ad trends and effectiveness. One of the more interesting ones was a collaboration between Chute and Ditto.

The two startups work on visual content (Chute gives marketers tools for harnessing user-generated content like photos, while Ditto is more focused on visual recognition and search), so it’s no surprise that their report focuses on this area, as well.

I thought the most interesting bit was the contrast between Instagram, where the most engaged photos posted by Super Bowl advertisers came (in descending order) from BMW (twice!), Nissan, Mercedes and Nationwide. (That’s the Mindy Kaling Nationwide ad, not the one everyone’s complaining about.) On Twitter, meanwhile, the most popular photo came from Cheetos, followed by Doritos, Bud Light and Canon.

This is maybe not a huge surprise, since fancy cars generally make for a prettier photo than a bag of chips (sorry, Cheetos), but still worth noting; Chute told me via email that these differences provide “insights into where brands might want to spend advertising dollars based on industry.”

Measuring social media engagement doesn’t necessarily tell you whether an ad is actually working, though. Take those car manufacturers. While they’re probably not trying to convince you to head to the auto dealership right this very second, it’s still worth noting a recent Rocket Fuel study suggesting that these ads don’t necessarily drive sales.

Anyway, getting back to Super Bowl photos, you can read part one of the report on the Chute site and part two on the Ditto site.

Oh, and like I mentioned, there’s a lot of data out there today. The Wall Street Journal has a pretty good roundup.

Uber has big plans for Super Bowl 50 this weekend. The rideshare platform will pick up passengers at designated areas throughout San Francisco and route them in a way that will hopefully help avoid all the traffic congestion that is already starting to happen before the big game. It’s also offering something very fun and fluffy ahead of the big day today – puppies on-demand.

The promotion is in partnership with the SFSPCA and Animal Planet, which runs the Puppy Bowl every year to help highlight some loveable critters in need of a home. It’s pretty much the cutest thing you’ll ever see.

About 70 puppies were drafted in this year’s puppy bowl, according to Uber, and dog lovers can get a visit from these special canines in seven cities throughout the United States. Thirty bucks donated through Uber and Animal Planet will give you 15 minutes of playtime during the Uber promotion today and all puppies in the program are available for adoption.

I went with the TechCrunch Video crew to check out some of the on-demand pups, including a hyper little fluffball named Honey Bee (we fell in puppy love).

Check out the video above and prepare yourself for cuteness explosion.

So you decided to finally ditch your cable package this year. Great! But now the Super Bowl is rolling around and you’re wondering how you’re going to watch Cam Newton dab all afternoon?

Luckily, we’ve put together a guide of all the ways you can stream the big game.

CBS, the network that is broadcasting Super Bowl 50 this year, is streaming the game for free across a bevy of set-top devices. Viewers can download either the CBS Sports App or NFL App on an Apple TV, Xbox One, Fire TV, Roku, or Chromecast and stream the game for free, even if you don’t have a cable subscription. Sweet!

Interestingly, ESPN will also be airing the game, but only in Spanish, and only on its ESPN Deportes channel.

If you decide to watch from your laptop, you can also head to CBSsports.com to stream the game.

Now it gets a little trickier if you want to watch from a mobile device. Verizon has bought exclusive mobile rights to the big game, and will be limiting the game to only phones on a Verizon service plan. So if you’re lucky enough to have big red as your service provider you can stream the game via the Verizon Go90 App* or the NFL Mobile app on your phone.

But what about if you’re outside of the U.S? The game will still be available internationally, but only on the NFL Game Pass video service, which costs $99 a year.

And most importantly, don’t worry about missing any ads, because CBS has confirmed that for the first time they will be including advertisements in all of their streams. 

*Disclosure: Verizon owns AOL, which owns TechCrunch

Before it’s made apparent by my remarks, I don’t know jack shit about football. I can watch a game with a Bud Light in hand and unassumingly make my way through a plate of snacks and know when the right time to yell at the ref or give a high five is, but eh it’s not my thing.

What I was really interested in when I rolled into ESPN’s Marina Green mobile studio in San Francisco was what actually went into putting on a production like this that would undoubtedly be the go-to analysis for millions of fans. I wondered what went into choosing the location and, in a city like San Francisco, what sort of community interactions took place to get the studio invasion okayed. I also was curious how many people it really took to get the production up-and-running.

When I grabbed my security credentials and walked into the open-air studio on the edge of the San Francisco bay, it was clear that this was a huuuge production.

Famed football players moseyed through the sets as dozens of fans outside of the barrier gaped at athletes I didn’t recognize. Someone jovially shouted “Hey, who is that guy?” as the all-to-knowing crowd guffawed because this celebrity was really THAT famous. Meanwhile I stood there, phone in hand sending snapchats of the stars (?) to my football-loving buddies who replied with jealous hatred.

Beyond the select few “talent” and their interview subjects who were present, there were dozens and dozens and dozens of production crew members. Most of these people were buzzing from set to set while others took their union-required breaks to check out some of the takes being prepped for the more theatrical commercial bumpers.

The exciting thing about the pop-up studio is that at any given moment there was something going on that was streaming live to living rooms across the country and everyone there had a piece in how that process took place. Equipment was being misplaced, takes were stretching on for hours and someone’s whereabouts was always being inquired about. But the crazy thing is that even with the uncertainties caused by covering this massive event on foreign turf, the staff rolled through beaming its coverage and made it apparent what a well-oiled machine this production was.

A number of technology companies took to the airwaves during last night’s Super Bowl 50 broadcast to make their names – and brands – better known among a mainstream audience. However, according to new data out today from TiVo, which historically tracks viewer engagement with Super Bowl ads across its network, the only tech company to make into the list of the top 10 Super Bowl ads was Apartments.com .

Its controversial advertisement titled “Moving On Up,” featuring Lil Wayne and Jeff Goldblum, was the #7 most engaging ad, said TiVo, falling in behind other popular household names like Pepsi, Doritos, and Mountain Dew, for example.

The ad was also most-watched, when compared with those from other tech companies, said TiVo. (That may not be a good thing, however, given that TMZ called out the advertisement for being “low-key racist” for its depiction of Lil Wayne cooking dinner for George Washington, a former slave owner.)

TiVo says it determines its rankings based on aggregated, anonymous, second-by-second audience measurement data from a sample size of approximately 30,000 anonymous households with TiVo’s service. Interest in an advertisement is based on what percentage of the audience is watching the ad in “play” speed.

The most engaging ads are those that see the biggest increase in viewership relative to the viewership in the surrounding 15 minutes of programming, the company also notes.

In addition to Apartments.com, other tech companies whose ads did well with viewers include Machine Zone’s $5 million ad for the Mobile Strike game featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger, which ranked #2 out of all tech companies’ ads.

Next was Amazon .com’s ad promoting its connected speaker Echo and the powers of its virtual assistant, Alexa. Amazon actually released a few ads touting Echo, though it had never before advertised during the Super Bowl.

PayPal’s ad, “There’s a New Money in Town,” performed well, too, as it snagged the fourth spot.

The full list is below.

If you’re wondering where GoDaddy was – the company said it choose not to advertise this year. The company claimed the decision was not due to the criticism some of its former ads have generated, but rather because it no longer needs to work on raising its brand awareness, according to an interview with Recode.

Here are the top five ads in case you missed them:

• Apartments.com

• Machine Zone

• Amazon Echo

• PayPal

• Squarespace

All sports fans love a good playoff game. But actually attending one is something most folks never have the chance to do. The ticket prices for these games, from pro basketball to college football bowl games, is exorbitant. Plus, you don’t even know if your team is going until way late in the season, when prices are at their highest.

Shoowin, a new startup backed by BBG Ventures, is looking to help out.

Shoowin creates partnerships with leagues and sports teams for an allotment of tickets that can be reserved at low prices.

March Madness is a great example.

Let’s say I’m a big Syracuse fan, but can’t afford March Madness tickets. (The former is false, the latter is true.)

With Shoowin, I could buy a $20 reservation to a Syracuse playoff game at the beginning of the season. The longer the season goes, and the more likely it is that Syracuse goes to the final four, the more that reservation is worth.

I could trade that reservation with other Syracuse fans a few days before the big game and keep the profits, or I could actually attend and get a ticket for the original $20 I put down, plus the face value cost of the ticket.

In most cases, that’s a difference of at least $1000.

There are a number of packages that are going to be available through Shoowin when it launches officially, which will be for the fall college football season. For example, I could reserve tickets to all playoff games that the UGA Bulldogs make. On the other hand, I could reserve a ticket to the Sugar Bowl, regardless of the team.

Shoowin raised $1.25 million in seed funding, led by BBG Ventures, to get the platform off the ground and is currently working with teams and leagues to build out reservation availability.

You can learn more about Shoowin here.

The Super Bowl is in two weeks. The Patriots versus the Falcons. And Charter Communication’s Spectrum service wants you to change your wifi password to support your favorite team!

Don’t do that.

https://twitter.com/GetSpectrum/status/823590638952349701

Don’t change your wifi password to GO_ATLANTA or GO_NEWENGLAND. That’s terrible advice. As always, use a unique password, and if a bunch of strangers end up at your Super Bowl party, change the password after the game — or even better, enable the guest SSID found in most routers. Want to show your support for your favorite team? Hang a banner or write it on your face.

Wi-Fi security is paramount to personal privacy and the second largest cable and internet provider in the United States is throwing that out the window by advising customers to change their Wi-Fi password to one of two options. Ever want to jump on your neighbor’s network? Try during the Super Bowl.

Super Bowl LI may have made history as the first Big Game to go into overtime, but that may not have translated into record ratings, or, as it turns out, record social media engagement, either. According to Facebook, 64 million people posted 240 million interactions its social network last night, an increase over last year’s 60 million users and 200 million posts during what was, then, an arguably less intense game. But that’s still down from 2015’s record-breaking 65 million people and 265 million engagements.

Twitter, meanwhile, is showing a slight jump from its 2016 numbers but also wasn’t able to break 2015’s record numbers.

This year, Twitter says that more than 27.6 million tweets were posted about #SB51 during the live telecast, including pre- and post-game conversations. Last year, that figure was 27 million. But Twitter also wasn’t able to surpass 2015’s record of 28.4 million tweets posts before, during and after the game.

What is notable this year is the role mobile and video played. Over 90 percent of Facebook interactions took place on mobile, the company says. And there were 262 million views of Super Bowl-related videos on the platform. This was helped by NFL’s posting of official content, including Live video and other behind-the-scenes action.

In 2016, there was some speculation that the downturn in social media engagement had to do with the fact that the game itself was not that interesting. But the same could not necessarily be said of last night’s matchup between the Atlanta Falcons and the New England Patriots. While the Falcons took an early lead of 21-0, the Pats came back in the fourth quarter, tying the game and sending it into overtime. If anything could have flamed a surge of social media postings, this sort of turnaround should have fit the bill.

But Twitter and Facebook only showed smallish increases over last year’s numbers, and are still down from the record-breaking game in 2015.

What gives? It comes down to who’s watching. According early reports, the viewership numbers for this year’s Super Bowl are either below or roughly on par with last year’s game, but are down from the record audience seen in 2015. Combine this with the fact that the NFL has been struggling with lower ratings in recent months – with even NFL commissioner Roger Goodell saying he didn’t know why.

Goodell hinted that the way people consume media is changing, which is why the NFL has increased its efforts online, through properties like Snapchat and YouTube. Or, in other words, cord-cutting is impacting NFL viewership numbers, and the NFL is now trying to reach out to the younger generation of fans in new ways.

Of course, because of their sheer size, Facebook and Twitter will always see large numbers in terms of user engagement. But today’s social media landscape includes other networks that could be eating into their numbers a bit.

For example, on Facebook-owned Instagram, 44 million people had 150 million interactions on Instagram related to the Super Bowl. Snapchat hasn’t revealed its numbers, but it certainly had a piece of the action, as well. This year, the teen-friendly network had four official Super Bowl sponsors, including Amazon, Budweiser, Marriott, and Pepsi. Other brands operating during the pre-game included GrubHub, GE, and Taco Bell.

The top social moments for Super Bowl LI were fairly consistent between platforms, with key gameplays and Lady Gaga’s halftime performance ranking high among the most tweeted or posted-about events.

Ah, the Super Bowl. That magical time of year we gather around the T.V. set and pay just as much attention to the ads that run between plays. Increasingly, though, you can get much of that precious advertising viewing experience out of the way before the big game even starts.

After offering a brief online tease for its upcoming ad, Amazon’s gone ahead and posted all 90 seconds of “Alexa Loses Her Voice.” It’s a goofy, star-studded affair, featuring some Oscar caliber acting from a concerned Jeff Bezos and a cross-discipline collection folks including Gordon Ramsay, Cardi B, Rebel Wilson and Anthony Hopkins stepping in for Amazon’s voice assistant.

Things don’t go great, and hilarity, naturally, ensues.

But is there deeper meaning behind the spot? After all, with prices reportedly running north of $5 million per 30 seconds, is Amazon hinting at something bigger, or simply finding a way to get the Echo Spot in front of a lot more American eyeballs, with help from Hannibal Lecter?

Is there anything to those glowing blue Echo headset supported by the cast? After all, Amazon has filed patents for Alexa-enabled headphones. The company also recently announced a mobile accessory development kit back at CES, aimed at bringing the tech to wearables like headphones and smartwatches.

The company already shot that theory down. Turns out those are just a fun prop. What about customizable voices for the smart assistant? Wouldn’t that be cool? The end of the spot appears to put an end to that theory, with Alexa promising to “take it from here.”

Alexa’s been getting a lot more regional accents of late, as the Echo has entered new markets. But the smart assistant’s U.S. voice does seem due for an upgrade akin to the one Siri got late last year as part of iOS 11.

Or maybe it’s just a goofy commercial and we’ve been thinking entirely too much about the whole thing.

Do you like to watch football? How about the biggest game of the year — which happens on February 4 (aka this Sunday)? If yes to either of these, then you’re in luck: I can tell you how to get the most out of the experience via connected smart home tech, gadgets and AV equipment. Set “indulge” mode to MAX.

The TV

There are plenty of TV options out there for your viewing pleasure, but the one that takes the cake in my opinion is the Sony Bravia A1E 65-inch 4K OLED HDR Smart TV. Why? Because it’s the smartest television around, in terms of how it makes use of tech, and that goes way beyond its Android TV-based OS (though that’s nice, too).

Part of the smarts come from Sony’s X1 chip, which is a dedicated image processor in the television that’s responsible for its unbeatable upscaling prowess. I immediately noticed that no matter the source resolution of the content I was playing on the Sony TV, the picture looked far, far better than it did anywhere else. Sony says this is because it’s using the chip to rebuild the image pixel-by-pixel, and using a reference library of thousands of 4K images taken from Sony’s extensive library of film and TV studio content to do that rebuilding intelligently, instead of just having to take a guess based on surrounding pixels, as other TV makers do.

The X1 also helps out with the unique in-panel speaker that Sony uses on this television, which literally turns the entire surface of the TV into an audio output device. It helps positionally track faces on the screen, so that when people speak, including from your favorite sideline commentators, their voices actually seem to be coming from their mouths. It’s so good, you might want to opt for that instead of your surround system, but more on that below.

Ultimately, this isn’t the cheapest TV out there (even among OLED models) but its picture quality is unmatched thanks to Sony’s tech, especially if you’re using a streaming signal (like the free one NBC is making available this year for watching the game).

The remote

A good setup needs a good remote, and the Logitech Harmony Companion paired with the Harmony Hub is pretty much exactly what you need for smart home control, including AV equipment like the TV above, as well as various smart devices like those listed below.

Logitech’s whole Harmony lineup is good for this, but the Harmony Companion + Hub bundle has the advantage of being full-featured and capable, while also not breaking the bank. The Hub is key for making sure all your smart home devices can be controlled (including via Google Assistant through Android running on the Sony TV, or also via Alexa), and the Companion remote is an uncomplicated affair, without the power draw of an integrated display, but with a bunch of flexibility thanks to being able to assign different activities to long and short presses of the various activity buttons.

It ships with not only the Hub, but also two IR extenders in the box, which make it easy to establish setups for both open- and closed-cabin AV stack installations. Setup of the software and app is also super easy, and can be done entirely on your smartphone — which becomes another controller using the app, too.

The lights

Philips Hue is still the smart light brand to beat, in my opinion, and they work great with Google Assistant, as well as Alexa and the Harmony remote. You can easily brighten the room with a voice command for when you’re taking a break for wings or nachos, and then darken the room again when halftime’s over and the main show is once again the focus of everyone’s attention.

Using stuff like IFTTT, or even preset smart device scenes with Google Assistant, you can trigger different lighting for different events — like color-coded touchdowns, for instance.

The speakers

As mentioned above, the Sony Bravia OLED TV has speakers integrated into its screen surface that sound amazing, and work great with things like sports and commentary, but if you want to add a little more connected magic to the mix, there are a couple of good options in this category.

Sonos speakers are a great addition to a home theater, especially if you’re already invested in the system. You can craft a home theater sound setup using their Playbase and Playbar, and add a subwoofer for bass, too. But if you’re already super committed to Google Assistant and Chromecast (which is built-in to the TV), you can also pick up Riva’s Festival and Arena speakers, which have Chromecast features built in.

The benefit of that is that you can set them up in group and have the game-day audio broadcast around the house: That way, even in the kitchen or the bathroom, you’re still going to be able to hear all the action as it goes down. And again, you can control all this using voice commands with your TV remote or smartphone.

The post-game game

Once the game is done, or if you’re not interested in watching Justin Timberlake perform at halftime, the best way to occupy that time is to virtually experience your own Super Bowl at home by firing up Madden 18 on the big screen. The Xbox One X version is fully set for 4K HDR displays, so it’s the perfect pairing if you’re using the TV above or another one with those resolution and quality capabilities.

Today marks the 52nd Super Bowl, and quite a bit has changed since that first big game. Then, it was called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game. In 1967, the cost of a movie ticket was $1.25, and color TV was just starting to become popular.

Today, more than fifty years later, we can now stream the big game to our pocket computers and have artificially intelligent assistants sitting around in our homes to keep us up to date on predictions.

That said, the three big voice assistants seem to have a different approach on predicting who will win the Super Bowl today.

Apple’s Siri is playing it straight. When asked who will win the Super Bowl, she simply responds with data:

“I’m hearing that the Patriots are favored to beat the Eagles by 4.5 points.”

Google Assistant, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to want to plant a flag in the sand. The voice-powered AI has a few different responses to the question of who will win the big game, each less informative than the last.

• “Both teams are hungry for victory, which is important. While the players will be leaving everything on the field, I want you to leave nothing in the chip bowl.”
• “All I can say is it’s going to be fierce. At some point, both quarterbacks will yell ‘Kill! Kill! Kill!’ and call an audible, but don’t be afraid. You’re not in any danger.”
• “I don’t have any answers but I can confidently say this: I predict a touchdown within the first sixty minutes.”

In each of these three responses, the voice of Google Assistant is accompanied by roaring crowds. Which, let’s be honest, makes these responses even more ridiculous.

This brings us, finally, to Amazon Echo. When asking Alexa who will win the Super Bowl, Amazon has decided to take their voice assistant in a more human direction. Pats fans, brace yourselves!

“The team favored to win is the (cough). Is the (cough). Excuse me. Is the Patriots. (Clears throat.) That was tough to get out. But I’m flying with the Eagles on this one because of their relentless defense and the momentum they’ve been riding off their underdog status. E-A-G-L-E-S! Eagles!”

Funny enough, Amazon is anything but an underdog and more aptly represented by the Patriots than by the Eagles.

But, in any case, you should have some fun chatting it up with your favorite AI before the game. Unless it’s Siri. That’s just boring.

The NFL season ends tonight with the New England Patriots losing to facing off against the Philadelphia Eagles in Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

The game starts at 6:30pm ET / 3:30pm PT and this year will be aired on NBC, meaning if you have cable or an HD antenna you can just tune into NBC to watch.

If you want to watch it on a device like a phone, tablet or smart TV you can download the NBC app or NBC sports app. Usually these require authenticating with your cable login, but for the Super Bowl anyone will be able to watch without logging in.

And this year for the first time you can watch the game on your phone even if you don’t have Verizon, either via one of the above mentioned apps or on the NFL Mobile app and the Yahoo Sports app.

If you’re on the web you can also just stream the game at nbc.com or nbcsports.com. And if you’re outside the U.S you can check out the NFL’s website here to see streaming options depending on your country.

Overall this is probably the best year yet in terms of how easy it is to watch the game, especially considering that mobile streaming is no longer limited to those with a Verizon phone plan.

Lastly, if you’re looking for some new living room tech to watch the game on we put together a guide of the ultimate Super Bowl smart hub set up that you can check out here.

The Super Bowl is over and the stadiums across the country that once held thousands of fans on any given Sunday will be mostly empty in the off-season, but Tom Brady is still at work.

The quarterback who will undeniably go down in NFL history as one of the greatest of all time is already thinking about his next act. Alongside Michael Strahan (another football great who has made the transition into pop cultural icon) and Gotham Chopra — the producer, director and former war correspondent — Brady is launching a new sports media startup.

Called The Religion of Sports, the new startup, which is seeking around $3 million in outside capital, is neither The Players’ Tribune, Derek Jeter’s media platform for athletes to tell their own stories, nor TraceMe, Russell Wilson’s access-focused app for athletes and celebrities.

Instead, Brady, Strahan and Chopra, alongside chief executive Ameeth Sankaran, a former investor with a family office out of Texas and longtime friend of Chopra’s, want to create a multi-platform storytelling business that functions like an old-school studio — dedicated to sports — that tells the best stories in the medium that’s most appropriate for them.

If this seems like a thesis in search of a technology platform, that’s because it is — but it’s impossible to discount the Rolodexes that Strahan, Brady and Chopra (the son of Deepak Chopra) have on hand and the power that their network can wield.

It’s also impossible to discount their dedication to sports… and the stories that can be told through the lens of players and their fans.

For Strahan, who has already made the jump to becoming a capital “C” celebrity, this is another hyphen to add to his multi-hyphenated career of all-star-talk-show-host-business-mogul, but for Brady, who may retire as soon as the end of next season (if the Pats make another Super Bowl appearance), there’s definitely a sense of what will come next.

The crew first came together around five years ago when Brady met Chopra in Los Angeles.
“I think in our very first meeting, he shared with me the idea of Religion of Sports, and I was hooked immediately!,” Brady wrote in an email. “Over the next few years, Gotham and I continued the conversation and the friendship evolved very naturally from there.”

Strahan had enjoyed a long-standing friendship with Brady and through mutual friends was connected with Chopra, who floated the idea of the company to him. The idea resonated. “I love the storytelling aspect and being able to produce content that’s different and inspiring,” Strahan wrote in an email.

While both Brady and Strahan are among the greatest athletes to play the game of football, Chopra brings the eye, and mind, of the ultimate fan.

For him, the inspiration for the company goes back to something out of a Norman Rockwell illustration. Picture an immigrant father and his young son sitting in the stands at Fenway Park, watching the Red Sox take the field. That experience, and the sense of community that it instilled, became a focal point for the younger Chopra and a theme that would recur again and again in his work.

Over a succession of Diet Cokes at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel one afternoon earlier this year, Chopra and Sankaran laid out their vision for the company.

“As more and more momentum was created around ‘The Religion of Sports’ show, Gotham became convinced that it was more than a show — it was a movement,” Sankaran said. “Our first step was to make Tom and Michael not executive producers in the show but partners in the business.”

Ameeth Sankaran and Gotham Chopra with Erik LeDrew, a producer at Religion of Sports

Think of it as a new media contender to old line properties like ESPN — with celebrity athletes and producers driving the creation of new properties. “We’re hearing in the marketplace an openness for experimentation [and] we’re willing to be innovative around what a business model will look like,” Sankaran says.

For Chopra, sports is the ultimate non-denominational church, and the narratives that are spun through its lens around mythical heroes like Strahan and Brady who perform Herculean feats, or the pilgrimages that fans take to the stadium on game day, hold the same significance as any other liturgy.

His partners in the endeavor feel the same. “I’ve always seen sports as an incredible form of community and way to express yourself, so I was excited by the potential of the Religion of Sports to have a major hand in expanding that,” writes Brady. “I hope our stories empower people to look at life and the world of sports in a deeper and more positive way.”

As the mechanics and technologies for storytelling evolve, it presents an opportunity for new business models to emerge, Sankaran says. And Brady, Strahan and Chopra are already taking advantage of new mediums for developing and distributing the stories they want to tell.

There’s already the Religion of Sports series on The Audience Network and the blockbuster success of the company’s latest endeavor — the Facebook-distributed (and pretty masterful) Tom vs. Time series.

The series already racked up more than 42 million views on Facebook — a little more than one-third of the total viewership of this year’s Super Bowl — and additional projects like Why We Fight (with TechCrunch’s parent-parent company, Verizon) and one currently in production on the 2018 NBA Draft should also rack up the views.

In some senses Religion of Sports is trying to upend the idea of a network in the same way that Players’ Tribune has. The internet has given a means for any group equipped with enough of a following and the means to produce quality content to set themselves up as a new take on the ESPN model. You don’t need a “channel” because the site and its attendant mobile app are the channel — existing alongside other methods for distribution.

Storytelling has become about format (long form versus short form) rather than the screen on which it’s presented. And companies predicated on storytelling won’t replace traditional networks and other outlets, but work with them from a position of power and exist alongside them.

“I think a lot of people feel that traditional networks and other media outlets are a dying breed and they are going down because you have all of these new mediums out today,” Strahan writes. “Networks, brands and other franchises have already diversified themselves to adapt to the way information is given out now today. I think these companies are smart and run by smart individuals who understand that things are changing but there are certain aspects that possibly won’t change and they are going to hold on to those as well.”

Brady says that new challengers are definitely going to emerge, and that he wants his shot to be among them.

“Traditional networks and brands have so much experience and traction in the storytelling space that I see most of them being major leaders for a very long time to come, but I think some new players will definitely continue to push them!,” he wrote. “In general, I think the most authentic and emotionally engaging storytelling will rise to the top.”

South Park famously annoyed the world by triggering Echo and Google Home devices with familiar wake words. When Amazon’s at the wheel, however, the company is able to ensure that Alexa stays quiet using a method called acoustic fingerprinting.

In the lead-up to the Super Bowl, the company’s offered a (relatively) easy-to-understand breakdown of why its celebrity-laden ads won’t wake up Alexa during the big game. With its own ads, the company adds a fingerprint of the audio, which is stored on-device.

Given the Echo’s storage limitations, additional fingerprints are stored in the cloud, where the assistant can cross-check things before waking. The system generally works pretty well, though complications can occur in, say, a noisy environment (what Super Bowl party has ever been noisy, though?) in which case a longer clip is required to do its job.

Things, naturally, get a bit trickier when Amazon isn’t producing the ad (as South Park fans can attest). In that case, the system cross-checks audio with different users.

“If the audio of a request matches that of requests from at least two other customers, we identify it as a media event,” the company explains. “We also check incoming audio against a small cache of fingerprints discovered on the fly (the cached fingerprints are averages of the fingerprints that were declared matches). The cache allows Alexa to continue to ignore spurious wake words even when they no longer occur simultaneously.”

Once upon a time, people had to wait for the Super Bowl to watch the ads. Those dark days are over. Now you can have companies sell you products on-demand, any time, day or night. Amazon has already debuted its latest Alexa ad, and now Microsoft’s getting in on the action — and this one’s a bit of a tear-jerker.

The software giant’s Super Bowl spot highlights some of the work it’s done to increase the accessibility of its products. Front and center is the Xbox Adaptive Controller, a $100 ad-on that makes the console more accessible to gamers with a range of different needs. The spot features a number of different children (and their parents) who are better able to enjoy gaming using the device. 

The Adaptive Controller was created with input from a number of different groups, including The AbleGamers Charity, The Cerebral Palsy Foundation, SpecialEffect and Warfighter Engaged, and tested with help from various users. On top of its base functionality with two large pads, it also works with a number of different control inputs, which can be plugged into the rear of the product.

Amazon, Dish, Comcast and others are hoping to turn Super Bowl 2019 into a way to show off the potential for their voice technologies and TV integrations. The companies this week have been touting new features and a variety of voice commands that will allow viewers to get prepared for the big game, learn about players and teams, tune into NFL news and highlights, set their recordings and more.

In some cases, this may be as simple as asking your TV to tune to the Super Bowl, record the event or get more information about the game, as is the case with Dish. Customers can press the button on their Dish voice remote, then say to Alexa “Super Bowl” or “Super Bowl 53” to watch, find information or record the game, the company says.

Comcast and Amazon are taking things further, however.

Comcast’s Xfinity X1 customers can now use their voice remote to get the latest stats, get pre-game news and post-game highlights or even turn on an app that tracks real-time stats on the screen during the big game.

For example, X1 customers can say “Tom Brady vs. Jared Goff,” “The Patriots vs. the Rams,” “Show me Julian Edelman,” “Show me Rams leaders” and other sorts of commands to get stats on teams or to learn about the players. They also can say “Super Bowl” or “NFL” to be taken to news and highlights, or say “X1 Sports app” to launch the stat-tracking feature on their TV screen.

Smart home users with Xfinity Home can even turn their lighting to their favorite team’s colors by saying “Xfinity Home, go Patriots!” or “go Rams!,” as desired.

Alexa’s Super Bowl feature set is more robust, offering the ability to ask for trivia and quizzes, background on the players and teams, stats, jokes and burns, track the odds, get historical data and more.

These sorts of questions can range from the basic — like, “where is the Super Bowl this year?” — to the more complex, like “what is the Patriots yards per carry this season?” or “how many times has Tom Brady been to the Super Bowl?”

You can also ask Alexa for a Super Bowl quiz, fact or past game recaps, in addition to more informational questions. Alexa can give you football jokes and “burns,” too.

What was surprising was that some of the stat-related questions Alexa could answer herself weren’t answered on Google Home, when asked the same way — for example, the above yards per carry question, and number of Super Bowls that Tom Brady has been to.

Both Alexa and Google Assistant will give you their own opinion on who they want to win, however. Google says it’s cheering for the underdog, the Rams. Alexa says as much as she wants to cheer for the Rams, she thinks the Patriots will win.

Another year, another batch of Super Bowl commercials from tech giants like Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

In fact, Amazon will have different ads focusing on different areas of the business: one highlighting products that won’t be taking advantage of its voice-powered assistant Alexa, and another previewing “Hanna,” an upcoming show on Amazon Prime.

Microsoft, meanwhile, is highlighting some of the ways technology can actually make people’s lives better — perhaps as a corrective to the ongoing backlash against the tech industry.

There will be star-studded spots from somewhat less ubiquitous companies too, with Bumble enlisting Serena Williams to deliver a message of empowerment and Squarespace depicting Idris Elba’s attempts to build his own website.

This year, we’ve also got commercials from non-tech companies like Pringles that place voice assistants and robots front-and-center. And while there are plenty of car commercials, I tried to stick to the ones that actually focused on new tech.

I’ve rounded up the tech-related ads that were released before the game below. Some companies are holding back until the actual Super Bowl, so if necessary, I’ll update this post after the game.

Updated with Budweiser, CBS All Access, Hulu, Netflix and Wix commercials, plus the full TurboTax commercial.

Amazon Alexa

Amazon Prime/”Hanna”

Audi

Budweiser

Bumble

CBS All Access/”The Twilight Zone”

Expensify

Google

Hulu/”The Handmaid’s Tale”

Michelob Ultra

Microsoft

Netflix/”Our Planet”

Pringles

Squarespace

TurboTax

Wix

Football fans didn’t tune into this year’s Super Bowl coverage on TV in as large numbers as in years past. According to Nielsen, the big game drew an average televised audience of around 98.2 million viewers. CBS, however, said the big game was watched across all platforms — including digital and streaming — by a combined total of 100.7 million viewers. In addition, the streaming coverage of the game broke new records this year, which helped to make up for the TV audience decline.

The network said the streamed event was watched across 7.5 million unique devices, up more than 20 percent from last year. Streaming viewers watched more than 560 million total hours of live game coverage, up more than 19 percent from 2017. And the average minute audience of 2.6 million viewers during the game window was up over 31 percent year-over-year.

The live stream’s record-breaking numbers were aided by the fact that the stream itself was available unauthenticated across CBSSports.com, the CBS Sports app, NFL.com, the NFL app and Verizon mobile properties — including Yahoo Sports, Yahoo, AOL, AOL Sports and Tumblr. (Disclosure: TechCrunch is owned by Verizon.)

The live stream was also made available on CBS’s subscription streaming service, CBS All Access, which saw a record number of new subscriber sign-ups, unique viewers and time spent on Super Bowl Sunday — following the service’s recent record-breaking weekend attributed to the Season 2 premiere of “Star Trek: Discovery” and the AFC Championship Game.

CBS All Access sign-ups were up 84+ percent on Super Bowl Sunday, while unique viewers were up more than 46 percent, and time spent was up more than 76 percent, CBS said.

Streaming, combined with TV viewers and CBS digital properties like CBS Interactive, NFL digital properties, Verizon Media mobile properties and ESPN Deportes TV and digital properties, brought the total audience to 100.7 million, as noted above. But 149.0 million watched the game either all or in part (meaning they watched at least six minutes of the TV broadcast), according to Nielsen data cited by CBS.

However, Nielsen also pointed out that TV viewership saw a massive drop this year for what was generally thought to be a pretty boring game (and boring halftime show).

According to the measurement firm’s preliminary results released Monday evening, the telecast of Super Bowl LIII on CBS drew an average TV audience of about 98.2 million viewers.

That’s down 5 percent from last year, when 103.4 million people watched the Super Bowl on NBC, and a 12 percent drop from 2017’s game on Fox. The New York Times attributed the decline to the forgettable game, New Orleans fans tuning out, NFL boycotts over Colin Kaepernick’s treatment and other factors. It’s also the smallest TV audience since 2008, when the Giants beat the Patriots.

GM is bringing back the Hummer in a new electric form. The automaker confirmed Thursday plans to produce an all-electric Hummer with 1,000 horsepower and the ability to accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in 3 seconds.

This “super truck,” which GM teased in several videos, will be under its GMC brand. The teasers, one of which is posted below, were released ahead of a 30-second Super Bowl ad for the Hummer called “Quiet Revolution” that will star NBA phenom LeBron James.

All of these videos and the ad will lead into a big reveal scheduled for May 20.

GM isn’t releasing information on the base price of the Hummer. The automaker did share some eye-popping specs, including it will produce the equivalent of 1,000 horsepower, have a 0 to 60 mph acceleration of 3 seconds and 11,500 feet of torque.

“GMC builds premium and capable trucks and SUVs and the GMC HUMMER EV takes this to new heights,” Duncan Aldred, vice president of global Buick and GMC, said in a statement.

The company said the Hummer EV will be produced at its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant in Michigan. On Monday, GM announced plans to invest $2.2 billion into its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant to produce all-electric trucks and SUVs, as well as a self-driving vehicle unveiled by its subsidiary Cruise. The automaker said it will invest an additional $800 million in supplier tooling and other projects related to the launch of the new electric trucks.

GM will kick off this new program with an all-electric pickup truck that will go into production in late 2021. The Cruise Origin, the electric self-driving shuttle designed for ridesharing, will be the second vehicle to go into production at the Detroit area plant.

Detroit-Hamtramck will be GM’s first fully dedicated electric vehicle assembly plant. When fully operational, the plant will create more than 2,200 jobs, according to GM.