CBS Sports’ telecast of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ 31-9 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs averaged 91.629 million viewers, down 8% from Fox’s telecast of the Super Bowl last year. The CBS number includes out-of-home viewership. 

This year marks the lowest TV-only audience for the Big Game since Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Seattle Seahawks averaged 90.75 million viewers on ABC in 2006.

The numbers were better for overall viewing, with CBS recording a total audience delivery of 96.4 million viewers across all platforms — down 6% from last year.

CBS noted Bucs-Chiefs was the most live-streamed NFL game ever, averaging 5.7 million viewers per minute, up 65% from last year’s game. It was the first NFL game in history to total more than 1 billion streaming minutes.

Multiple factors unique to the game may have driven down TV numbers. 

• The game was a blowout with the Bucs’ 22-point win representing the second-biggest margin of victory over the last 18 Super Bowls. TV viewers don’t stick around for lop-sided contests.
• Referees largely controlled the pace and drama, particularly in the first half. 
• There could have been Tom Brady fatigue for his 10th Super Bowl. 

The Super Bowl audience drops are in line with the NFL’s 8% falloff for the 2020 regular season. But the numbers still caught many sports media-watchers by surprise — particularly after the AFC and NFC Championship games drew rating increases.

“Cyberpunk 2077” publisher CD Projekt can’t catch a break.

After an influx of complaints about the game’s performance and a move by Sony to pull the game from its digital store, CD Projekt said hackers accessed its internal network and left a ransom note.

“Although some devices in our network have been encrypted, our backups remain intact,” CD Projekt tweeted. “We will not give in to the demands nor negotiate with the actor, being aware that this may eventually lead to the release of the compromised data.”

The hacker encrypted the company’s servers and threatened to leak or sell the source code of its games — including “Cyberpunk 2077” and “The Witcher 3.”

The ransom note also mentioned sending documents related to accounting, legal and HR to “contacts in gaming journalism” if the two parties could not come to an agreement.

CD Projekt’s hack is not unusual.

“Our research shows that on average, every 10 seconds an organization becomes a victim of ransomware worldwide, but CD Projekt is doing the right thing by refusing to give in to the hacker’s demands,”Jon Niccolls, EMEA and APAC incident response lead at cybersecurity firm Check Point, told CNBC.

Shares of CD Projekt sank 4.7% Tuesday, down more than 30% since the game’s release in December.

MLS avoided its first work stoppage ever after agreeing to an amended collective bargaining agreement with its players association. 

The league originally set plans to sign a revised CBA in December, but concerns regarding player salary and agreement length pushed things back. Reaching an agreement and avoiding a lockout ahead of the 2021 season was paramount.

Without billion-dollar television deals, MLS relies heavily on revenue generated from the game-day experience. ESPN, Fox Sports and Univision pay around $90 million combined for MLS rights annually.

• Under the new CBA, players will receive a smaller portion of national TV revenue when the league cuts a new deal in 2023, but gain somewhat friendlier free agent conditions starting in the 2026 season. They will also not take salary cuts in 2021.
• Players agreed to extend the CBA by two years, through 2027. 

MLS training camps are set to begin in late February, with the regular season kicking off in April, but the dates could still be pushed back.