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Super Bowl Sets All-Time Ratings Record for Second Straight Year

rick porter
·2-min read

A blowout on the field didn’t deter a record number of viewers from watching Super Bowl LIX.

Sunday’s Fox Sports telecast averaged 126 million viewers across all platforms, according to early figures from Nielsen and internal Fox data. If that number holds, it will be the second straight year that the Super Bowl set an all-time viewing record in the United States. Sunday’s game is currently up about about 2 percent compared to last year’s record-setting 123.7 million viewers on CBS (which accounted for 120.25 million of those viewers) and other platforms.

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Fox also says the game set a Super Bowl streaming record with 13.6 million viewers on its free streaming platform, Tubi, and 14.5 million including NFL digital platforms. The previous streaming high was about 11.2 million viewers in 2022.

Should those numbers hold, the primary broadcast on Fox might end up down year to year; last year’s game drew 120.25 million viewers for CBS. But the upswing in streaming more than made up for the

The lopsided nature of the game seemingly had no effect on the TV audience. The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 40-22, in a game that wasn’t as close as the final score suggests: The Eagles’ lead was 34-0 late in the third quarter, and 40-6 before a pair of Kansas City touchdowns in the final three minutes of the game.

Viewing peaked at 135.7 million from 8-8:15 p.m. ET, during the game’s second quarter, when the Eagles were building a 24-0 halftime lead. But viewers clearly stuck around for Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show, which included the rapper performing his Grammy-winning, Drake-beefing hit “Not Like Us,” and the second half of the game.

In addition to the main broadcast on Fox and live stream on Tubi, Telemundo carried the Spanish-language telecast of the game. More detailed breakdowns of the audience on each outlet will be available Tuesday.

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