Super Bowl LVIII was a nail-biter, played down to the last minute when the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers in overtime 25- 22 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
The competitive match-up, a spate of appearances from celebrities including Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and Leonardo DiCaprio, plus a hallmark halftime show by Usher, all led to record ratings.
Per data revealed by CBS Sports and provided by Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, Super Bowl LVIII drew in an average audience of 123.4 million viewers across all platforms, including cable viewers, Paramount+, Nickelodeon, Univision, and select digital properties.
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This makes the program the “most-watched telecast ever” and the most-watched single broadcast since the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, which brought in an estimated 125 to 150 million people.
“More than 200 million viewers (202.4) watched all or part of Super Bowl LVIII across networks, the highest unduplicated total audience in history and up +10% vs. last year’s Super Bowl (184 million),” CBS said in a release.
On CBS alone, 120 million viewers watched the big game, smashing the record of the largest audience in history on a single television network.
And although the Super Bowl was CBS and the NFL’s big single-game win for viewership this year, the league’s regular 2023-2024 season also broke records.
“The NFL ON CBS scored the most-watched regular season since the NFL returned to CBS in 1998 as well as the Network’s best postseason viewership since 1998,” CBS said.
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Usher’s halftime performance brought in an estimated 5% more household viewers than last year’s performance by Rihanna.
Next year’s Super Bowl LIX is set to take place in New Orleans, Louisiana (home of the New Orleans Saints) at Caesars Superdome on February 9, 2025.
