Super Bowl LVII Nets 113M Viewers, Most in Six Years

Super Bowl LVII had an average audience of 113 million viewers, potentially making it among the top 3 viewership-wise for the NFL title game when the final numbers are tabulated. 

Kansas City Chiefs’ 38-35 comeback victory over the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday was the most-watched Super Bowl since 2017, according to data released by Fox Sports on Monday. 

While the numbers could be adjusted, the game currently stands below just two broadcasts since the data has been tracked: 

• Super Bowl XLIX (114 million total average viewers) — The mark set when the New England Patriots edged Seattle Seahawks in the last game played at State Farm Stadium. 
• Super Bowl LI (113.7 million)  — The February 2017 game where New England Patriots came from 25 points down to beat the Atlanta Falcons. 

The Super Bowl LVII halftime show featuring Rihanna averaged 118.7 million viewers. 

The numbers provided by Fox Sports included those who watched the game on Fox and Fox Deportes, along with the network’s and NFL’s streaming properties. 

It was the first Super Bowl called by both Fox play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt and analyst Greg Olsen. Fox’s No. 1 duo also called the most-watched regular season game ever as 42 million viewers tuned in for the Dallas Cowboys-New York Giants Thanksgiving Day game. 

For the 2022 regular season, the NFL averaged 16.7 viewers per game.

That impressive number was down 2% from 2021, but it was the first season where Amazon Prime was the exclusive home of “Thursday Night Football.” The weekly primetime game went streaming only outside the local TV markets of the teams playing each week. 

Fox Sports App Blazing Fast

Beyond the ratings, there was a milestone of sorts regarding the Fox Sports app on smart TVs and set-top boxes. 

Fox Sports app (1 second behind the live action on the field) had less latency than cable (17 seconds) and DirecTV (39 seconds), according to The Streamable. The app was just a second behind typically the quickest way to view content,  over-the-air antennas.

YouTubeTV — which will become the new home of NFL Sunday Ticket starting next season — was 56 seconds behind the action. 

With the rise of in-game betting and people using social media, streamers have worked to cut the latency down for years.