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NBC explains Super Bowl blackout seen by millions

You weren't the only one to notice a 20-second blackout during the second quarter of the Super Bowl.

A group of Philadelphia Police Officers watch the Eagles take on the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII outside of The Draught Horse Pub & Grill near Temple University's campus during on Feb. 4, 2018.
A group of Philadelphia Police Officers watch the Eagles take on the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII outside of The Draught Horse Pub & Grill near Temple University's campus during on Feb. 4, 2018.Read moreMark C Psoras/For the Inquirer
    by Rob Tornoe
    Published 

An estimated 100 million people are watching tonight's Super Bowl, magnifying even the smallest technical errors that would get overlooked during just about any other broadcast.

So when the live feed of NBC's Super Bowl broadcast went dark for about 20 seconds, millions of viewers were left scratching their heads, especially considering NBC collects a cool $5 million for each 30-second ad that airs during the Super Bowl,

Fortunately, the blackout didn't cost the network a dime.

"We had a brief equipment failure that we quickly resolved," said an NBC spokesman "No game action or commercial time were missed."

Of course, that didn't stop viewers on Twitter from offering their own funny theories about the blackout. Several media writers made a connection between the dead air and the abrupt ending during the final episode of HBO's The Sopranos.

The New York Daily News' Josh Greenman speculated it might have been an anti-commercial commercial.

The blackout reminded New York Times writer Sopan Deb of a scene from 1998's "Star Trek: Insurrection."

Here are some more amusing responses to the blackout: