Super Bowl Viewership Rose to 123.4 Million, a Record High
Sunday night’s overtime Super Bowl shattered ratings records. An audience of 123.4 million watched the Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers, according to preliminary figures from Nielsen and CBS, which broadcast the game. That figure easily eclipsed last year’s record high of 115.1 million, when Kansas City defeated the Philadelphia Eagles. Final Nielsen ratings for the Super Bowl will be issued on Tuesday.
The figure is the total who watched on CBS, the Paramount+ streaming app, the Spanish-language channel Univision, N.F.L. digital channels or Nickelodeon, which aired a child-friendly telecast. The vast majority watched the game on CBS, which recorded 120 million viewers, according to Nielsen.
The game had a lot going for it. It went into overtime, concluded with a game-winning touchdown pass (for a 25-22 final score) and featured an elite Kansas City team with a superstar quarterback, Patrick Mahomes. Travis Kelce, Kansas City’s starting tight end, also happens to be dating a megastar in Taylor Swift, who attended the game in Las Vegas.
At a moment when traditional television ratings have been in free fall, the N.F.L., particularly the Super Bowl, has stood immune to massive viewership changes affecting the rest of the media world. Thirteen of the last 15 Super Bowls have drawn more than 100 million viewers, according to Nielsen, a bigger audience than in earlier decades.
Sunday’s performance also capped off a big year for N.F.L. ratings. Viewership was up 7 percent, according to Nielsen, falling just shy of the record set in 2015. Several playoff games set ratings records, including the A.F.C. championship game on CBS, which scored more than 55 million viewers, and an A.F.C. divisional playoff game that d
