The Super Bowl match-up between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers drew more than a half-million viewers to Comcast’s Sky Sports in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, the broadcaster said on Monday.
Around 514,000 households tuned in to watch Kansas City defeat San Francisco to clinch a rare overtime win in Super Bowl LVIII (58) earlier this month, a 49 percent increase compared to the number of households that tuned in to watch Kansas City top Philadelphia just one year prior.
The game was also the most-watched National Football League (NFL) event aired by Sky Sports, surpassing the previous season’s playoff match between the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals, which had 415,000 viewers.
A spokesperson for Sky noted that around 100,000 more female viewers tuned in to watch Super Bowl LVIII on Sky Sports, which they owed to a tie-in with pop star Taylor Swift, who is dating a Kansas City player.
Viewership of Super Bowl LVIII peaked at 761,000, marking the highest peak for an NFL game aired on Sky Sports, the network said.
The Sky Sports telecast differed from one aired on CBS, in that Sky produced some of its own pre- and post-game coverage. That coverage included an interview conducted by Sky Sports NFL correspondent Neil Reynolds with San Francisco quarterback Brock Purdy before the game, and a magic show with magician Steven Frayne on the streets of Las Vegas.
Super Bowl LVIII brought 123.4 million viewers to CBS, Paramount Plus, Vix Plus, Univision, NFL Plus, the CBS Sports app and Nickelodeon, according to data released by Nielsen, making it the most-watched live event in American television history.
