2026 Super Bowl scores 124.9 million viewers, second-largest audience in history

Defense wins championships and Super Bowl LX showed it tin get ratings too.

NBC’s Sunday telecast of the Seattle Seahawks’ 29-13 triumph implicit the New England Patriots averaged 124.9 cardinal viewers according to Nielsen data, falling abbreviated of the grounds of 127.7 cardinal acceptable past twelvemonth connected Fox.

Seattle’s smothering defence preventing New England from ever getting connected way successful the crippled astatine Levi Stadium successful Santa Clara, Calif., was much appreciated by superior shot fans than casual watchers. But the contention surrounding the lawsuit with halftime performer Bad Bunny apt stoked further interest.

Bad Bunny’s halftime amusement averaged 128.2 cardinal viewers, higher than the crippled overall. The show aired aft the 2nd quarter, erstwhile the crippled was inactive adjacent and deed a highest of 137.8 cardinal viewers.

The NFL’s enactment of Bad Bunny riled up right-wing commentators who objected to having an creator singing lone successful Spanish performing astatine the premier U.S. sporting lawsuit of the year. Bad Bunny has besides been outspoken implicit the Trump administration’s assertive tactics successful removing undocumented immigrants. He skipped the mainland U.S. connected his past tour, citing fears that his fans would beryllium targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Right-wing activistic radical Turning Point USA presented an alternate halftime amusement connected YouTube, which topped 6 cardinal viewers, a amazingly precocious fig considering details of the programme were not revealed until days earlier crippled day. A performance featuring Kid Rock and respective lesser-known state artists did not get a beardown captious reception connected societal media.

But the assemblage size showed that a blistery philharmonic enactment could pull a important chunk of the assemblage already gathered to ticker the game.

“More bands should spell caput to caput with the halftime amusement and not successful a governmental way,” said 1 rival web enforcement not authorized to remark publicly. “It would beryllium a bully stunt for HBO Max oregon immoderate different institution that’s not an NFL rights holder.”

Nielsen’s betterment to its measurement of viewing done net connections and set-top boxes — which boosted NFL TV ratings passim the season, besides apt helped the Super Bowl LX number. The further information was incorporated into TV ratings starting successful September.

Another 3.3 cardinal watched the Spanish-language broadcast connected Telemundo. NBC did not merchandise information for viewing connected its Peacock, saying lone that it was the biggest time ever for the streaming platform.

NBC sold retired the commercialized clip for the crippled astatine an mean terms of $8 cardinal for a 30-second spot, with immoderate going for $10 million. USA Today’s yearly “Ad Meter” sheet chose Budweiser’s “American Icons” arsenic its favourite commercialized connected the telecast.