The Super Bowl has gone from a high-profile football game to a complete pop-culture event. It’s a spectacle. All NFL fans watch the Big Game whether their team is in it or not.
But even non-football fans watch the Super Bowl. Maybe the halftime show catches their eye, or maybe they’re excited to see some of the best commercials or biggest movie trailers of the year.
And the game—or more specifically, how to watch the game—has changed over the last decade as well. Gone are the days where everyone grabbed the remote and turned the television on. Now, fans are watching the Super Bowl on cable TV and across a myriad of streaming platforms.
So how many people are watching?
Introduction to Super Bowl Viewership
Something to keep in mind is that viewership and TV ratings are not the same thing. Raw viewership numbers are precisely that—how many individuals were watching a program.
Whereas TV ratings (or Nielsen ratings) are a percentage of American TV households that were watching a certain program or channel.
For example, Super Bowl 58 had a Nielsen rating of 42.1 and a viewership total of 123 million. So 42% of American TV households were watching the Super Bowl and approximately 123 individuals watched the game.
Super Bowl Viewership Statistics: By the Numbers
Overall, there tend to be similar trends each year. The opening kickoff usually has some of the lowest viewership numbers, with spikes coming later in the second quarter and early in the fourth quarter. Depending on the halftime show, viewership could go up or down. In 2021, more than eight million viewers turned off The Weeknd’s halftime show. But in 2024, Usher set a record for halftime show viewership, with nearly 130 million watching him.
Beginning in 2006, the NFL broke viewership records for six-straight years, peaking at more than 111 million people watching Super Bowl XLVI.
Things would remain in the 113-million range until Super Bowl LI in Houston. More than 126 million people watched the Atlanta Falcons collapse and the New England Patriots complete the greatest comeback in the history of professional football.
That game remains the most-watched Super Bowl in history, but Super Bowl LVIII came close with 123.7 million viewers.
Ratings History of the Super Bowl
Jan. 15, 1967. The Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs met in the first Super Bowl. Broadcast on both CBS and NBC (due to NBC having AFL game rights and CBS having NFL game rights), Super Bowl I was watched by 51.2 million Americans across both networks.
From 1968 until 1984, CBS and NBC would alternate coverage of the Super Bowl. Each year saw the game become more and more popular, but things really exploded in the 1970s, alongside the popularity of the Dallas Cowboys and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
So it’s no surprise that Super Bowl XII (78.9 million viewers), XIII (74.7 million) and XIV (76.2 million) became the first three games to surpass the 70-million mark.
Super Bowl XX became the first game to surpass 90 million viewers and it would take another 20 years for the NFL to break 100 million viewers, as 106.5 million tuned in to watch Drew Brees and Peyton Manning square off in Super Bowl XLIV.
The Super Bowl has surpassed 100 million viewers every year since 2010, topping out at 126.3 million in 2017 and 123.7 million in 2024.
Global Super Bowl Viewership
More than 62 million people outside the U.S. watched the Kansas City Chiefs defeat the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII, which was a 10% increase from the previous year.
The game was watched by millions in Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, China, Canada and Mexico. And that doesn’t even count the exposure and coverage the game received on social media.
On the whole, Super Bowl LVIII was aired in more than 195 countries/territories via nearly 100 partner networks, apps and streaming services. The game aired in more than 25 different languages.
It became the most-watched telecast in history.
In short, the NFL is becoming a global game.
Who Watches the Super Bowl? Audience Demographics
About 75% of people aged 18-34 watch the Super Bowl and just over half (54%) of viewers are men.
But the NFL isn’t just a young person’s game. More than 60% of adults aged 65+ tuned in to the Super Bowl as well.
These numbers illustrate a point that seems obvious at this point: The entertainment value provided by the Super Bowl has mass, nearly universal appeal. More than 50% of every age group in the U.S. told Statista they were either “definitely” or “probably” watching Super Bowl LVIII.
The Impact of Commercials on Super Bowl Viewership
With all of those eyes on the Super Bowl, it’s no surprise that getting an ad spot during the game costs a lot of money.
Just a 30-second spot during Super Bowl LVIII cost $7 million, which is up roughly 200% from 2000.
Of course, the flipside is that your product is now getting more attention than ever. And with the added element of social media, you have a chance to go viral on top of the in-the-moment advertising.
This is why many companies go above and beyond for their commercials during the Super Bowl— like Dunkin’ Donuts getting Ben Affleck and Matt Damon for their 2024 ad campaign.
And while viewers tend to roll their eyes at commercials throughout the other 364 days of the year, many people are pumped up for Super Bowl ads.
Nielsen reported in 2010 that 51% of Super Bowl viewers enjoy the commercials more than the actual game. In 2022, Advocado conducted a study that found that more than 40% of those surveyed watch the Super Bowl for the advertisements, not the game. And 50% of those surveyed admitted to buying a product based on a Super Bowl commercial.
The Role of the Halftime Show in Super Bowl Ratings
The Super Bowl halftime show wasn’t always the spectacle that fans view it to be today. The NFL had brought in collegiate marching bands for the better part of 30 years before getting more mainstream musical acts in the 1990s.
The turning point?
That came in 1993 when the biggest recording artist on the planet, Michael Jackson, performed at Super Bowl XXVII.
It took some selling to get Jackson on board, but he eventually saw it as an opportunity to perform for fans worldwide who might never be able to see him on stage.
His set was so good that many declined the following season, out of fear they couldn’t follow up MJ. But by the 2000s, it was legend after legend.
Phil Collins headlined in 2000, Aerosmith in 2001 and U2 in 2002. Paul McCartney played in 2005. The Rolling Stones headlined 2006 before Prince, Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen closed out the 2000s.
The Future of Super Bowl Viewership: Trends and Predictions
We don’t know much about Super Bowl LIX yet. FOX has the broadcast rights and Tom Brady will be one of the announcers. The game will be played on Feb. 9, 2025, at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. Grammy award winner Kendrick Lamar will headline the halftime show.
That being said, if the game follows the trends of the last decade, the NFL will be looking at another ratings gangbuster.
It likely won’t be long before a Super Bowl breaks 130 million American viewers.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as How Many People Watch the Super Bowl? Statistics and Ratings History.
