The Big Game has come and gone once again, and people showed up in droves to watch the best of the NFL battle it out. This year, an average of 113.06 million people tuned in for the program across FOX’s broadcast, as well as through the digital streaming options for FOX and the NFL. This viewership would make the game the second-highest-viewed broadcast of all time (only behind the 2014 Super Bowl). In total, 182.6 million people watched all or at least part of the Super Bowl.
The overall household rating/share for the Super Bowl was 40/77%. To no one’s surprise, the top-two markets with the highest ratings were from the home teams, Kansas City, Missouri, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, respectively. The top-five highest-rated markets are as follows:
- Kansas City – 52.0/87%
- Philadelphia – 46.3/77%
- Cincinnati – 45.9/77%
- Detroit – 43.4/74%
- Pittsburgh – 43.0/73%
Regarding the advertising during the event, the average cost for a spot was $7 million. As for the most-watched ads, the top-five most-watched ads on YouTube were:
- com – 100 million
- T-Mobile – 37 million
- “Fast X” trailer – 26 million
- Google Pixel – 26 million
- Rakuten – 25 million
One interesting item to note was the accessibility of this year’s Super Bowl. Normally, a majority of the time, a cable or cable streaming service was required to watch the game. However, with the ever-growing streaming landscape, FOX decided to make the game more accessible to anyone watching. The game was available for free on the FOX Sports app and website. This availability led to this year’s game being the most-streamed Super Bowl in history with an average of 7 million streams, which is an 18% increase YoY.
Even with declining broadcast ratings across the board, the continued increase in Super Bowl viewership continues to show the desire for consumers to watch live sports and events.