Super Bowl LVIII sets US TV ratings record with average 123.4 million viewers

The longest Super Bowl game will also go down as the most-watched program in television history.

Kansas City’s 25-22 win over San Francisco on Sunday night drew an average of 123.4 million viewers across television and streaming platforms, according to Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.

That shattered last year’s mark of 115.1 million for Kansas City’s last win over Philadelphia by a 7% increase.

The game was broadcast by CBS, Nickelodeon and Univision and streamed on Paramount+ and the NFL’s digital platforms.

Nielsen also said a record 202.4 million people watched at least some of the game across all networks, up 10% from last year’s 183.6 million.

The CBS broadcast averaged 120 million. The network’s previous figure for most-watched Super Bowl was 112.34 million for the 2016 game between the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers.

Some of the increase can be attributed to a change in the way viewers are counted. Nielsen began including outdoor viewers in its ratings in 2020, but only from limited markets. That measurement was expanded to all 50 states at the beginning of this year.

Sunday’s game was only the second of the 58 Super Bowls to go into overtime. The previous one was in 2017, when New England rallied from a 28-3 deficit to beat Atlanta 34-28.

“I lived up to my expectations, but I had a little hope that it would happen,” CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus said of overtime, which was set up when San Francisco kicker Jake Moody had an extra point blocked in the fourth quarter. kept it a three-point game. “I can’t imagine a Super Bowl better or more exciting than this one.”

Kansas City sent the game into overtime on Harrison Butker’s field goal. After the 49ers kicked a field goal on the opening possession of OT, the Chiefs won when Patrick Mahomes threw a three-yard touchdown pass to Mecole Hardman.

This Super Bowl had the added appeal of Taylor Swift. The pop superstar is dating Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, a romance that has brought new fans to the NFL.

It was the second year in a row that the Super Bowl averaged more than 100 million viewers, following a period in which four of the five games before 2023 fell below that number due to cord-cutting. That included 95.2 million for the 2021 Super Bowl between Tampa Bay and Kansas City, the lowest TV-only average since 2007.

Univision averaged more than 2.2 million viewers, the highest Super Bowl viewership ever for a Spanish-language channel. The Super Bowl has been broadcast in Spanish in the United States since 2014.

The NFL playoffs averaged 38.5 million viewers over the first three weekends, a 9% increase over last year.

That followed a regular season average of 17.9 million, tied for second place since averages were first tracked in 1995.