Despite a blowout of a game and halftime performer telling people to turn off their TVs, the Super Bowl registered record ratings for the second year in a row, according to final numbers released Tuesday afternoon.
Sunday’s game on Fox, which saw the Kansas City Chiefs lose to the Philadelphia Eagles, averaged a record-setting 127.7 million viewers across all platforms, encompassing broadcast TV, streaming and apps. That marks a 3% increase over last year’s record-breaking game on CBS and Paramount+.
The final figure is a mix including Nielsen’s measurements for Fox and the two Spanish language broadcasts on Fox Deportes and Telemundo, as well as Fox-provided numbers for Tubi and NFL analytics for viewership on its apps, like NFL+.
Fox said the game peaked in the second quarter between 8pm and 8:15pm ET when 137.7 million people were tuned into the game. Tubi also earned the honors of hitting record-high streaming viewership with an “average minute audience” of 14.5 million viewers, the network said.
Even the halftime show broke records, with Kendrick Lamar’s performance earning an average of 133.5 million viewers thus making it the “most-watched Super Bowl halftime performance in history,” Fox said.
The Super Bowl’s massive viewership makes it all the more valuable to advertisers trying to reach a mass market. Some companies dished out $8 million to secure a 30-second spot during the big game.
The record ratings shows that NFL is still a magnet for viewers, despite the regular season ratings slightly falling 2% for the year. Football games still regularly out-rate anything else on TV during the year, with streaming services wanting a piece of the action. For the first time, Netflix aired a slate of games on Christmas last year.
NBC and Peacock will air next year’s Super Bowl in Santa Clara, California on February 8 — two days after the Winter Olympics begins, which is airing on the same network.
