Super Bowl LX, the championship National Football League (NFL) game played on Sunday, managed to attract just under 125 million viewers across NBC, Telemundo and other platforms — a respectable number that is sure to help solidify the game as the most-watched event on TV this year, but one that also failed to shatter any viewership records.
According to Nielsen, Super Bowl LX brought in a total of 124.93 million viewers who watched some or all of the game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots, including those who streamed the game on Comcast’s Peacock, the NBC Sports app and the NFL’s digital properties.
The figure was around 2 million viewers lower than Super Bowl LIX aired on Fox the prior year, which attracted 127.71 million viewers, based on finalized Nielsen data. But viewership of Super Bowl LX could still increase by the time Nielsen finalizes its ratings data, which is expected later in the week. It isn’t uncommon for live events, including the Super Bowl, to see an upward ratings adjustment based on non-live, same-day viewership.
This year’s Super Bowl was the first to incorporate ratings data from Nielsen’s Big Data + Panels product, which aggregates its traditional panels-based measurement product with first-party data from streaming platforms and connected TV services.
If Nielsen’s preliminary viewership figure holds over the next few days, the results will cement Super Bowl LX as the second most-watched event in American TV history, just behind Super Bowl LIX, which streamed for free on Fox-owned Tubi.
The much-anticipated Apple Music halftime show featuring Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny delivered 128.2 million viewers, down from the 133.5 million viewers that Kendrick Lamar pulled in with the halftime show during Super Bowl LIX. The number was also off preliminary figures that put Bad Bunny’s halftime show at just over 135 million, which was based on social media rumors that gained momentum after CBS News published a story that appeared to verify that data point. (CBS News later amended its news article to remove the unverified viewership figure, but not before other outlets like Barrett Media — which uses artificial intelligence tools to re-write news stories — recirculated the report.)
Bad Bunny’s halftime show had some competition this year, with conservative group Turning Point USA producing its own counter-programming that attracted around 5 million YouTube viewers. YouTube’s viewership data is typically not accredited by a legitimate media measurement agency, though Nielsen does occasionally evaluate viewership for some live YouTube events and gauges time spent with the YouTube app on smart TVs on a monthly basis.
While the Super Bowl didn’t experience much overall growth this year, NBC did set a record for peak viewership: During the second quarter, nearly 138 million people tuned in, a figure that could increase to nearly 140 million viewers by the time finalized data is released.
