Alternate Super Bowl Broadcast Could Boost NFL’s Record Ratings

In February, a Super Bowl–record 123.4 million people watched the Chiefs beat the 49ers 25–22 in overtime to secure Kansas City’s second consecutive Lombardi Trophy. In four months, yet another innovation from the NFL could help bring in even more viewers.

Of course, Super Bowl LVIII had the ultimate on-field drama and culminated the season of Taylor Swift, who was in attendance in Las Vegas supporting her boyfriend, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. But it was also the first Super Bowl to feature an alternate broadcast on another channel besides that year’s main network partner. Paramount’s kid-friendly Nickelodeon had its own presentation of Super Bowl LVIII alongside CBS.

The game was also available to stream on Paramount+, NFL+, and CBS Sports and league digital platforms, in addition to a Spanish-language broadcast on Univision (which had a licensing deal with Paramount). That last part is key, as Super Bowl LIX will see the NFL bring the alt-cast strategy to another language.

While Tom Brady will be heard by the 100 million–plus audience tuning in to Fox on Feb. 9, Spanish-speaking viewers for the first time will have two options to watch, instead of one. Fox and NBCUniversal worked out a deal to produce two separate broadcasts that will air on Fox Deportes and Telemundo, both of which have previously aired Super Bowls.

Univision drew a Spanish-language record of 2.3 million viewers for Chiefs-49ers. That’s a small number in the wider Super Bowl lens, but still growth over the 1.9 million the year prior on Telemundo, which is scheduled to have Spanish-language rights in February 2026.

Continuing the English-language alt-cast trend in 2027, ESPN is planning to produce a ManningCast for Super Bowl LXI. Through five weeks of the regular season, NFL game broadcasts were averaging 17.5 million viewers, up 1% from the same time frame in 2023.