Fox expected the game between two of the top teams in the Super Bowl and a close game to lead to a record-breaking night for its ratings.
Although Sunday’s game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles was defined by a field goal with 8 seconds left, Fox fell just short of the goal.
The Chiefs’ comeback to beat the Eagles 38-35 is on track to become the third most-watched program on U.S. television, with an estimated 113 million people watching, according to preliminary figures released Monday.
Fox said its viewership estimate includes broadcasts on Fox and Fox Deportes, as well as streaming on Fox and the NFL’s digital sites. The figures were released by Nielsen via Fast National and Adobe Analytics data.
The 2015 game between New England and Seattle on NBC holds the record for the most watched with 114,442,000 viewers (not including streaming), followed by 2017 Super Bowl 51 on Fox between Atlanta and New England (113,668,000 viewers).
This was the 10th Super Bowl on Fox since the network began broadcasting NFL games in 1994 and the second-most-watched program in Fox Sports history.
It would also be a slight increase over last year’s Super Bowl average of 112.3 million. The Los Angeles Rams’ win over the Cincinnati Bengals was broadcast on NBC and Telemundo and streamed on Peacock and NFL sites.
According to Adobe Analytics, digital audiences averaged a record 7 million plays for the Super Bowl, an 18% increase over last year (6 million) and more than double for Fox’s previous Super Bowl in 2020 (3.4 million).
It was the third consecutive year in which the streaming average has exceeded 5 million. The first Super Bowl to be streamed in 2012 averaged 346,000 streams.
Rihanna’s halftime show averaged 118.7 million viewers, making it the second most-watched in Super Bowl history. Katy Perry’s 2015 performance has the highest mark with 121 million.
The average Spanish-language audience for the game was 951,000, a record as the most-watched Spanish-language Super Bowl game on U.S. cable television. It was also the most-watched non-football sporting event in the history of Spanish-language cable television in the country.
However, the Spanish-language viewership figure is less than the record 1.9 million on Telemundo, which, unlike Fox Deportes, has television affiliates in 90 markets.
The Super Bowl has been televised in Spanish in the U.S. since 2014.
Final Nielsen data will be available Tuesday, including figures for the English-only telecast. After Super Bowl games averaged more than 100 million viewers from 2010-18, four of the five games before this year have fallen below the figure because of cancellations to cable subscriptions. That included the 95.2 million for the 2021 Super Bowl between Tampa Bay and Kansas City, which had the lowest TV average for the game since 2007.
If Sunday’s figure exceeds last year’s 99.18 million, it will be the first time since 2015 that there have been two consecutive years of increases.
As expected, Kansas City and Philadelphia were two of the markets with the largest audiences. Kansas City was first, with a 52.0 rating and 87 share followed by Philadelphia with 46.3/77.
The rating is the percentage of households tuning in to the telecast. Share refers to a percentage of the television audience watching a particular program at the time.
Cincinnati, which lost to the Chiefs in the AFC championship, and Minneapolis also had a 77 share.
The numerous commercials during the most-watched TV event of the year featured many celebrities – Ben Affleck, Ozzy Osbourne, Matt Damon, Maya Rudolph, Martha Stewart and the cast of “Breaking Bad.”
Steve Williamson, senior vice president of market research firm GWI. said that according to polls brand trust is lower this year and that companies were looking to well-known names for momentum.
“There wasn’t one brand in particular that took over the Super Bowl,” he said. “There are all kinds of brands from alcohol to gambling to Jesus.”
Fox also said 15.5 million people watched the season premiere of Gordon Ramsay’s quiz show “Next Level Chef” following the game. The slot after the Super Bowl is usually the most coveted time slot on television.