The Super Bowl LIX match-up between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles might have been considered a re-match of the National Football League’s (NFL) championship game played on Fox two years ago, but the viewership numbers were strong nonetheless, according to projections published by Fox Sports on Monday.
More than 126 million people tuned in to watch some or all of Super Bowl LIX on broadcast, cable, satellite and streaming TV platforms, Fox Sports said, citing projected data from initial Nielsen ratings and first-party analytics from Fox, Tubi Media Group and the NFL.
The viewership figure is likely to increase in the coming days as Nielsen takes into account out-of-home viewing of the game, including viewership at bars, restaurants, hotels, airports and public watch parties.
Viewership of Super Bowl LIX peaked during the second quarter, with around 135.7 million people tuning in or streaming between 8 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. Eastern Time.
For the first time, Fox decided to offer a free stream of the Super Bowl via its ad-supported platform Tubi, with streamers able to watch the game without cost, so long as they registered for an account.
Around 13.6 million streamers took advantage of the free Super Bowl stream on Tubi, Fox said, citing internal data. The figure accounted for most of the Super Bowl’s digital viewers, which was 14.5 million, including those who streamed through the Fox Sports and NFL apps. Fox said the streaming viewership of Super Bowl LIX set a record for the most-streamed Super Bowl game.
Fox aired a Spanish simulcast of Super Bowl LIX on its Fox Deportes cable channel, and licensed the Spanish telecast rights of the game to Comcast’s Telemundo. The 126 million viewership projection takes into account the Spanish broadcasts on Fox Deportes and Telemundo, the latter of which was produced by NBC Universal.
The Philadelphia Eagles dashed any hopes of the Kansas City Chiefs scoring a “three-peat” championship. The final score was 22-40 in favor of the Eagles.
Viewership data for the Super Bowl LIX halftime show was not available as of Monday evening. The halftime show was sponsored by Apple Music and featured a performance by Kendrick Lamar.
