[5] [6] In fact, the Super Bowl is the American sports broadcast with the most consistent ratings, [7] and draws substantially higher ratings than other sports events, including the NBA Finals and World Series. [8] Ratings for the Super Bowl first peaked from 1977 to 1987, when no less than 44.4% of American households with television sets The Super Bowl ratings record remains a 49.1 for 49ers-Bengals in 1982, but the viewership record was set just this year (2024) — 123.7 million for Chiefs-49ers. While Chiefs-49ers owns the largest official Super Bowl audience on record, that is only because Nielsen did not begin including out-of-home viewing in its viewership estimates until Super Bowl secondary market ticket price by category in the U.S. 2025; TV ratings of the Super Bowl in the United States from 1990 to 2024 [Graph], Sports Media Watch, February 16, 2024. Earlier Super Bowls did better when it comes to TV ratings, with the highest-rated Super Bowl being a 49.1 in 1982 between the 49ers and Bengals. Of the five highest-rated Super Bowls ever, four NEW YORK – February 13, 2024 – An estimated 123.7 million viewers tuned in for Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday, February 11, according to average audience estimates from Nielsen. The broadcast averaged 120.3 million viewers on CBS alone, making it the largest audience for a single-network telecast to date. Market data provided by Super Bowl ratings: Highest rated, most-watched telecast of all time Kansas City Chiefs-San Francisco 49ers matchup draws average of 123.4 million viewers. Super Bowl television ratings and shares, including network (both NBC and CBS televised the first Super Bowl). The rating represents the percentage of televisions tuned in to a program. The share is the percentage of televisions on at the time that watched: That makes the NFL and the Super Bowl all the more valuable to advertisers trying to reach a mass market. Companies dished out about $7 million to secure a 30-second spot during the big game. Related There's a new Super Bowl TV ratings record, as an average of 120.3 million viewers tuned in on CBS to watch the Chiefs beat the 49ers. Some 123.4 million viewers watched the Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII, according to preliminary data from Nielsen and Adobe analytics, which made it the U.S Sunday’s Buccaneers-Chiefs Super Bowl 55 averaged a 57.6 rating in Boston, the market’s second-best Super Bowl rating ever behind only Patriots-Seahawks in 2015 (61.0). The rating increased 1% over the Patriots’ last Super Bowl appearance two years ago, when Brady won his final ring with the team (57.1), and 13% over last year’s Chiefs St. Louis significantly outdistanced the 42.8 rating Sunday in San Francisco, which tied for 24th nationally. But it's not uncommon for a major market to not be near the top of the Super Bowl Baltimore was the top market for this year’s game. The game earned a 49.0 rating in the Bay Area, down 3% from the 49ers’ most recent appearance in the Super Bowl — Super Bowl XXIX against the Chargers in 1995 (50.5). The Raiders’ last Super Bowl appearance, Super Bowl XXXVII against the Buccaneers in 2003, earned a 49.1. Seattle ranked second among all markets with a 56.7 rating, up 3% from the Seahawks’ loss in Super Bowl 40 (55.0). The game earned a massive 92 share in the market — meaning than 92% of the televisions in use were tuned to the Super Bowl. The Broncos’ blowout loss earned a 51.4 rating in Denver, down just a fraction of a percentage point The 2015 NFL title game between the Patriots and Seattle Seahawks, Super Bowl XLIX, remains the all-time most-watched TV program ever at 114.4 million viewers. Last year's Patriots-Falcons Super Bowl on Fox, which went to overtime, drew 111.3 million viewers. The 2016 Broncos-Panthers Super Bowl on CBS drew 111.9 million viewers. We construct a panel data set consisting of nearly 200 media markets and 6 years of Super Bowl ratings and sales data from Nielsen. The relationship between Super Bowl viewership and the sales data in the week leading up to the Super Bowl reveals the brands consumers purchase to consume while watching the game. Buffalo was the highest-rated local market for Super Bowl LVI, drawing a 47.9 local rating for the game. With a team from Ohio in the Super Bowl for the first time since '89, the Buckeye State had four markets in the top 10 for the Big Game. Dayton led the way with a 46.9 local rating, which was good enough for No. 2 overall behind Buffalo. The Super Bowl and the pre-game Kickoff dominated the ratings in most other cities across Canada, with CTV’s broadcast and pre-game show taking the top two spots in every Anglophone market except for Edmonton, where the pre-show was third. Super Bowl XLIX, which featured the New England Patriots’ thrilling 28-24 victory over the defending champion Seattle Seahawks in one of the greatest Super Bowls ever, delivered the highest Super Bowl metered market rating in history with a 49.7/72 overnight rating/share on NBC, according to data released today by The Nielsen Company. On the other hand, Denver ranked No. 1 in seven of the 14 demographic breaks including person 18-plus and persons 18-49. Minneapolis-St. Paul, the host market for the Super Bowl in 2018, had the second-highest household rating and was the top DMA for persons 25-54 of all the LPM markets. LPM Markets: Super Bowl Ratings Performance for Key Demos
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