Super Bowl LVIII Takes Ratings Crown From Last Year’s Game As Most-Watched Ever
The Kansas City Chiefs are now back-to-back Super Bowl champions. Along with collecting another ring, they’ve also once again set the record for the most-watched Super Bowl of all time.
Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday raked in an audience of 123.4 million viewers on CBS, Nickelodeon, Univision, and digital platforms including NFL+. That’s up 7% from last year’s record-breaking audience of 115.1M on Fox, according to Nielsen data.
More from Deadline
CBS led the way with 120M watching on the broadcast network alone, marking the largest audience in history for a single network. According to Nielsen, more than 200M viewers tuned in for at least part of the game across networks. That’s up 10% from last year’s figure of 184M.
The 2024 game is not only the most-watched Super Bowl ever, it is now the second most-watched TV program in history. In first place is the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, though that aired across multiple networks. This also means that the Chiefs have played in — and won — the two most-watched Super Bowls of all time.
RELATED: Usher Fizzles In Super Bowl Halftime Show Despite Alicia Keys & Guest Stars Galore – Review
Earlier this week, Deadline predicted this year’s Super Bowl could set a record, given the perfect storm that was brewing with Taylor Swift at the center of it all.
The NFL had already posted gains across the board during the regular season, and the postseason performed even better. In January, the Chiefs beat the Baltimore Ravens in the most-watched AFC Championship Game of all time. Given everything the Chiefs had on the line in terms of securing their third Super Bowl win in five years, this was sure to be a highly anticipated game, no matter the outcome.
And, of course, Swift managed to fly halfway around the world to support Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce on his big day. The CBS broadcast was fairly conservative when it came to showing the pop star and her friends on screen during the game, but as proven by the many events she’s attended that have gone on to set audience records in the past year, her influence couldn’t be discredited.
RELATED: Taylor Swift’s Reaction To Travis Kelce & Kansas City Chiefs Winning Super Bowl LVIII Goes Viral
Of the Top 10 most-watched Super Bowl audiences in history, CBS now holds three of them. The others are Super Bowl 50 (Denver Broncos vs. Carolina Panthers) and Super Bowl XLVII (Baltimore Ravens vs. San Francisco 49ers).
Best of Deadline
2024 Awards Season Calendar - Dates For Oscars, Guilds, BAFTAs, Tonys & More
2024 Premiere Dates For New & Returning Series On Broadcast, Cable & Streaming
'The White Lotus' Season 3: Everything We Know About The Cast, Premiere Date & More
Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.