The Best Home Entertainment Gear for Your Big Game Watch Party

The best home theater setup for watching sports offers premium image quality (even in bright viewing areas), excellent motion handling (for keeping up with all the fast-paced action), and killer sound quality for a truly immersive viewing experience.

Seating Capacity

When shopping home theater equipment, one of the most important things to keep in mind is the size of your viewing space and the viewing distance. This is especially important if you're trying to find the best TV for your home theater.

According to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), the optimal viewing distance results in the TV screen filling up 30 to 40° of your field of view (FOV). That's about 7" of screen for every foot of viewing distance for a 30° FOV and 10" of screen for every foot of viewing distance for a 40° FOV. If you want to skip the math, just follow the chart below.

So, now that we have a means for calculating viewing distance and determining the size of our viewing space, let's talk about appropriate gear recommendations.

For Smaller Viewing Spaces

Many of our New York readers will likely fall into this category. We're talking studios or 1-bedroom apartments with 5 to 7' of viewing distance. For that size of viewing area, you're going to want a TTV that's around 50", as well as a soundbar that's similarly compact.

One of the best "small-screen" TVs for watching sports is LG's LG's 48" C6 OLED TV. For years, LG has been cranking out some of the best OLEDs in the world and the C6 is no exception. This "mid-range" model features a stunning 48" 4K UHD panel with a 144 Hz refresh rate and HDR support, built-in webOS, the greatest TV remote ever made, and so much more.

The C6 is very good for watching sports thanks in part to its excellent SDR peak brightness performance and reflection handling (which is a must-have for bright rooms and fighting glare), exceptionally fast sub-0.1 ms response time (goodbye motion blur), and outstanding gray uniformity.

The C6 also features exceptional image processing, which can significantly improve low-resolution streams and broadcasts. If you’ve ever dealt with poor image quality caused by data compression or network congestion, the C6’s image processing can help.

If there's one "drawback" to the LG C6 it's that, like most TVs, the sound quality is just OK. It's not bad by any means, but if you're looking for sound quality that's better than "just OK," you should consider pairing the C6 with a new soundbar.

For smaller spaces, we recommend the Sonos Beam (Gen 2). Measuring 25.6" wide and 2.7" tall, this 2nd-gen soundbar is a good-sized speaker for smaller viewing spaces. Even though it's small, the Sonos Beam offers big soundstage. In fact, during our hands-on review, we couldn't detect a difference between the 25.6" Beam and a much larger 40" soundbar. Throw in advanced features like Dolby Atmos support, built-in Wi-Fi, and compatibility with all your favorite streaming services and voice assistants, and you're looking at (and listening to) one of the very best smaller-sized soundbars on the market.

For Larger Viewing Spaces

If you have a larger viewing space, one that can accommodate a viewing distance between 7.5 to 10', you're going to want a larger screen. For this size of viewing area, you should look at TVs in the 60 to 75" range.

At that size, one of the best TVs for watching the Big Game (or, really, any game) is the Samsung S95F OLED TV. This is not a TV. This is art. The S95F's picture quality, peak brightness, and color vibrancy are superb. HDR content looks unreal. Even video games look stunning thanks to the S95F's incredibly low input lag, an exceptionally fast refresh time, and support for 4K gaming at 165 Hz.

No surprise, the S95F is also an exceptional TV for watching sports. Its SDR peak brightness and reflection handling are both great, and its viewing angle is exceptional. The S95F also features a near-instantaneous response time, so you won't experience any motion blurring, no matter how fast-paced the action is. On top of all that, the S95F's color uniformity and vibrancy are exceptional, so you won't see any color variations or smudges in the on-screen image.

Now, if you want to pair one of the best screens in the world with one of the best soundbar systems, go ahead and take a look at the Samsung HW-Q990F. While it's definitely not cheap, this premium 11.1.4-channel soundbar system offers arguably the best overall performance, so you definitely get what you pay for. The Samsung HW-Q990F is ideal for virtually any use case or media type, including watching movies, streaming shows, listening to music—even dialogue-heavy content like podcasts and audiobooks sound incredible on the Samsung HW-Q990F. Not only is the sound quality unreal, but the level of immersion you'll experience is second to none. What that means for your watch party is that you and your guests will feel every hit, hear every audible, and experience the game like never before.

For Dedicated Viewing Spaces

If you have a home theater or any dedicated viewing space that has a viewing distance greater than 10', you might forego a TV altogether and opt for a home theater projector instead. That is definitely an option, and depending on the size of your viewing space and how big of a screen you want, it might be your best solution. Grab a high-end projector like the Hisense M2 Pro and throw the game up on a 200" screen in glorious 4K and no one's gonna complain (well, the NFL might).

A word of caution, though: choosing the right projector can be tricky. Not only do you need to weigh factors like optimal viewing distance and desired screen size, but you also need to be more mindful about certain environmental factors, like the amount of ambient light in your viewing area, what type of screen you'll need, any installation requirements or restrictions, what your intended use is, and so on. If you do decide to go with a projector, be sure to consider these key factors.

As far as choosing the right sound system for your dedicated viewing space: a premium soundbar system like the Samsung HW-Q990F will serve you right no matter the setup—this includes a dedicated home theater. However, some people do prefer A/V receivers to soundbars—especially users with multifunctional theater setups that rely on the myriad connections A/V receivers traditionally facilitate. Just like with projectors though, if you're going the receiver route, make sure you consider all the factors that are relevant to your particular setup before making a choice.

Let the Games Begin

With so many major sporting events on the way, now is a great time to upgrade your home theater setup. Along with our recommendations above, B&H has a huge catalog of home entertainment gear, including tons of discounted items.