Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni and quarterback Jalen Hurts celebrate with the Vince Lombardi Trophy after winning Super Bowl 59.
Mike Segar | Reuters
The Philadelphia Eagles weren’t the only ones that scored big at the Super Bowl.
The National Football League’s championship game attracted a record 127.7 million viewers on Sunday, according to Nielsen Media Research.
The supersized live audience was of most importance to the advertisers that shelled out big bucks to have their brands featured during the Super Bowl. It is rare that programming on live TV attracts such a big audience in one sitting, making the hefty price tag worth it, advertising industry executives recently told CNBC.
The cost of advertising during the Super Bowl rises each year, especially as the cable bundle loses more and more customers and must-watch programming revolves around sports and other live events. This year, some brands spent up to $8 million for a spot during the game.
Sunday’s Super Bowl aired on Fox Corporation’s broadcast network, as well as its Spanish-language cable network Fox Deportes and NBCUniversal’s Telemundo. Fox also offered the Super Bowl on its free, ad-supported streamer Tubi, and it was also available on the NFL’s digital properties.
Last year, the Super Bowl had locked down another record at the time, when more than 123 million tuned into Paramount Global’s CBS broadcast network, TelevisaUnivision network and other streaming options such as Paramount+.
Fox also reported that the Super Bowl broke another record when it came to streaming. The game on Tubi, Telemundo and the NFL’s digital offerings garnered 14.5 million viewers, while Tubi alone had 13.6 million viewers, according to Tubi first-party data and Adobe Analytics. This was the first time the Super Bowl was available on the app.
The Super Bowl’s viewership peaked at an audience of 137.7 million from 8 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. ET, during the second quarter, according to Nielsen.
Anticipation for the game helped boost viewership, too. Fox’s pregame coverage averaged 23.4 million viewers between 1 p.m. and kickoff.
The Eagles ran away with the game against the Kansas City Chiefs, with a final score of 40-22. While viewership tends to drop off in games with a large gap in the score, viewers clearly stuck around through the game.
The halftime show, headlined by rapper Kendrick Lamar and also featuring R&B artist SZA, had an average 133.5 million viewers across TV and digital platforms between 8:30 p.m. and 8:45 p.m. ET, up 3% from last year’s viewership of the music spectacle, Nielsen reported.
The Spanish language networks Fox Deportes and Telemundo had an average audience of 1.87 million combined viewers, according to Fox. This was the first time the Super Bowl was offered on both a cable network and broadcaster in Spanish. The league has been pushing to expand its audience, with a key part of its strategy being Hispanic viewership.
Disclosure: Comcast owns CNBC parent company NBCUniversal.
Correction: The headline on this story has been updated to correct that it was Super Bowl 59.
