THIS YEAR’S SUPER Bowl game has become the most watched programme in the US since the 1969 Moon landing.
According to Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, Kansas City’s 25-22 overtime victory over San Francisco on Sunday night averaged 123.4 million viewers across TV and streaming platforms.
The viewership total came in just behind that of the Apollo 11 mission’s 1969 Moon landing, which was seen by up to 150 million in the US across three television networks.
Kansas City became the first team to win the championship two years in a row since the New England Patriots in 2003-2004.
The Super Bowl is the most important date in the calendar for American football fans – and it held new interest this year for fans of singer Taylor Swift, who has attended multiple games over the course of the championship this year since she began her relationship with Travis Kelce.
She was in attendance on Sunday and the couple wer eseen embracing after the game.
The singer had a performance in Tokyo, Japan on Saturday night local time and then travelled by private jet to make the game in Las Vegas on Sunday afternoon.
The game shattered last year’s mark of 115.1 million for Kansas City’s last-play victory over Philadelphia and is a 7% increase.
The game was televised by CBS, Nickelodeon and Univision and streamed on Paramount+ as well as the NFL’s digital platforms.
Nielsen also said a record 202.4 million watched at least part of the game across all networks – a 10% jump over last year’s figure of 183.6 million.
The CBS broadcast averaged 120 million. The network’s previous mark for its most watched Super Bowl was 112.34 million for the 2016 game between the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers.
Some of the increase can be attributed to a change in the way viewers are counted.
Nielsen began including out-of-home viewers in its ratings in 2020, but only from 65% of the country.
That measurement is expected to expand to include all 50 states later this year.
It was the second straight year the Super Bowl averaged more than 100 million viewers after a period where four of the five games before 2023 had fallen short of that number because of cord-cutting.
That included 95.2 million for the 2021 Super Bowl between Tampa Bay and Kansas City, which was the game’s lowest TV-only average since 2007.
With reporting by Lauren Boland and Press Association
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