Super Bowl 2023 By The Numbers

Each year, the Super Bowl is an opportunity for the wireless infrastructure industry to shine. Months and years of work go into making sure the networks in the Super Bowl city work perfectly, and those network improvements provide benefit to residents of those cities for years to come.

With the exception of the unusual years during the pandemic, when stadiums and arenas were empty, wireless usage typically breaks records during the Super Bowl. This year was no different. Consider the following statistics that emerged from the Big Game this year:

  • Verizon fans used 47.8 TB of data in and around the stadium on game day, which the carrier said is the equivalent of a single user binge watching HD video for more than three years.
  • Data usage by Verizon customers was up 57 percent over the 30.4 TB used during the Super Bowl in 2022.
  • Wireless data usage on Verizon’s network spiked at kickoff with fans streaming video and browsing the Web, as well as during the halftime show.
  • AT&T reported data usage of 21 TB on its networks, up from 13 TB in 2022, and an 81 percent increase in 5G data usage over last year’s 5G game-day usage.
  • AT&T fans used 9 TB of data while tailgating and entering the stadium and appeared to be most focused on the game (and not on their phone) during the third quarter, when just 1 TB of data traversed the carrier’s local network.

UScellular conducted an interesting social experiment using artificial intelligence that revealed many fans were looking at their phone rather than watching certain events. Apparently 16,000 fans missed touchdowns during the game because they were using their phones, nearly 6,200 fans were watching their phone rather than the halftime show, and more than 4,300 fans were looking at their phones instead of the winning field goal.