Budweiser's "Puppy Love" Super Bowl commercial was a smashing success in 2014.
Budweiser’s “Puppy Love” Super Bowl commercial was a smashing success in 2014.

You won’t need a TV to watch Super Bowl advertisements in real time next year.

Variety reports that CBS will live stream each 2016 Super Bowl ad in near real-time, marking a big departure from the traditional advertising structure used in the past.

CBS will require clients to opt-in to live-streaming when selling its advertising package, Variety noted. It’s a big deal because this is the first time in history that a broadcaster has lumped live-streaming into the same advertising package as broadcast TV for the Super Bowl, where 30-second advertisements sold for north of $4 million earlier this year.

Microsoft ran two one-minute commercials during last year's Super Bowl.
Microsoft ran two one-minute commercials during last year’s Super Bowl and posted both spots online before the game.

Now, fans won’t have to sit in front of their TV to catch every ad; they can do so with just an Internet connection.

Last year, NBC sold digital-only ads for the game that were only broadcasted via the online stream. But CBS appears to be taking it one step further by selling broadcast and live-streaming ads in one package, versus offering the option to do either.

Some ads have been posted online before recent Super Bowl games, marking another shift from advertising strategies in the past. This creates opportunities for companies like iSpot.tv, a Seattle-based startup that tracks real-time customer response and digital effectiveness of Super Bowl online advertisements.

The Super Bowl game itself has been live-streamed since 2012, unsurprisingly breaking streaming records in the process.

Today’s news is another sign of the shift toward live-streaming sports action. For example, the NFL plans to broadcast a regular season game later this year strictly over the Internet for the first time ever. This is a pattern followed by other sports media giants like ESPN, which is sold live online video subscriptions for the Cricket World Cup this year.

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