Super Bowl LI: Fox Sports Wins With a Cord Cutting Touchdown!

If you can’t be at the NRG Stadium in Houston on Sunday, the next best thing is to catch the game at your local Super Bowl party. This year Super Bowl LI will be carried on the Fox network that’s available over air or via subscription services like cable and satellite TV. But, for those of us who have recently eschewed outrageous monthly cable bills and haven’t bothered to hoist an antenna onto our roofs, Internet streaming is our option of choice. And this year brings good news! Fox has made it easy for all of us to catch the big game on the Fox Sports Go app. This is your go-to option because the app runs on all major set-top and mobile devices. These devices include Roku, Apple TV, Xbox One, Amazon Fire TV and Android TV, and of course some smart TVs will carry it as well.

The difference this year is that Super Bowl LI can be viewed through Fox Sports Go without having to login to a subscription TV service. This is huge news for cord cutters, for whom trying to stream any programming - much less THE sporting event of the year - would normally require cable or satellite TV login credentials. The fact that the Fox Sports app is letting anyone watch the Super Bowl subscription-free this year is a huge deal, and a sure sign of broadcasting’s future. For Fox Sports this is a great way to get its app onto more devices. But restriction-free viewing of the Super Bowl represents a major shift away from the cable TV ogres who have kept networks under lock, key and whip for decades. It doesn’t take the Amazing Kreskin to predict that a serious change in TV media distribution is starting to materialize, and apps (like Fox Sports Go) are the likely beneficiaries of this new model.

FOUL - PlayStation 4!

If you’re a PS4 owner looking for the Fox Sports app, you’re about to feel the effects of big media nepotism. Since Sony doubles as a media company, it’s a bitter rival to Fox. Now, don’t get me started on the Marvel nerd culture war of the early 2000s that handed Spider Man to Sony but X-men to Fox - that’s a whole other editorial.

So, instead of letting PS4 users download the Fox Sports app directly, PlayStation users will need to use Sony’s own PlayStation Vue app to watch anything Fox Sports related - including this year’s Super Bowl. Vue carries a monthly fee, but PS4 owners wanting to watch the game could sign up for Vue’s free trial. Just remember to cancel that membership afterward.

Live Streaming in Canada

I’d be remiss as Ensign of Audioholics North if I didn’t include streaming options for my fellow countrymen. So, what’s in store for Canadian fans looking to watch the Super Bowl online? Good news - there are streaming options up here in America’s helmet!

This year, the big event will be play on CTV, CTV Two and TSN. For streaming purposes this includes the CTV.ca website and the CTV GO app. But, the most popular option for Canadian viewers will likely still be streaming directly from the US, using a VPN or any number of IP cloaking or geo-obfuscating services that give your computer or device a US IP address. With these options, the millions of Canadians that watch the Super Bowl each year can watch the game over Fox Sports Go like any American viewer. But this year, Canadians watching over Canadian networks will get a chance to see those American Super Bowl TV ads everyone talks about instead of the usual ads for Tim Hortons and Canadian Tire.

Okay team, now that we know the plays let’s get out on the grid-iron and give ‘em hell!