If you miss a debate you can watch the entire debate the next day on YouTube. It is the same for the convention speeches.

A debate is not like the Super Bowl or World Series. It's more like a movie or a play. There's no score. What they say and how they react is recorded. This makes some people shine and makes fools out of others.

In the Nixon/Kennedy debates they said if you heard them on the radio, Nixon won. When you watched it on tv, no recorders back then to speak of, Kennedy looked presidential and not shifty.