Super Bowl Set Viewership Record at 127.7M, Hints at Fox Streaming Future

The final viewership numbers for Super Bowl LIX are in, and it’s now even more clear how much Fox’s strategy to expand access to the game paid off for the network. 

After an initial average audience projection of 126 million for the game, Fox said the game ultimately delivered an average of 127.7 million across all platforms. That figure is 3% higher than last year’s Super Bowl figure of 123.7 million, also adjusted from preliminary estimates, and is a record for a single event in U.S. television history. 

The robust total for Super Bowl LIX, defying typical tune-out trends in a blowout such as the Eagles’ 40–22 win over the Chiefs, was aided by several key factors:

• Historic viewership on Fox’s free streaming service, Tubi, that averaged 13.6 million, according to first-party data—a key part of an overall digital audience of 14.5 million that was the largest in Super Bowl history. Tubi typically does not show live sports, but the network placed a significant emphasis on promoting the availability of Super Bowl LIX on that platform.
• A unique decision to expand Spanish-language coverage of the game on Telemundo, owned by rival NBCUniversal, to supplement broadcasting on Fox Deportes. The two networks combined to average 1.87 million during the game. That figure is down from 2.3 million from last year’s Super Bowl, shown in Spanish on Univision, but the cross-network strategy was nonetheless rare for an event like this.
• A pregame show, starting at 1 p.m. ET, that also drew an event-record audience average of 23.4 million viewers for a game lead-in of that length.
• The game was also an early beneficiary of a newly expanded methodology from Nielsen for counting out-of-home audiences, particularly in harder-to-reach rural areas.

The halftime show featuring Kendrick Lamar, meanwhile, posted an average of 133.5 million, representing the highest such figure ever for the Super Bowl entertainment showcase. The game audience itself peaked in the second quarter at 137.7 million. 

New Strategy for Tubi?

It will now bear watching whether Fox does more with its live sports on Tubi after the historic success of Super Bowl LIX—which by itself posted a higher average audience than many sports events, including championships in the NBA and NHL, do across all platforms.

Before the game, not only did Tubi not offer much live sports, but it also didn’t have as much of a corporate focus for Fox compared to rival streaming services operated by other networks. Rather, Fox had consistently lauded the power of traditional television, even in an age of accelerating cord-cutting across the industry. 

Last week, however, Fox announced plans to create a new direct-to-consumer service, something that will have a clear focus on live sports and news. To what degree that also involves Tubi is a question, but Fox clearly sees the larger audiences now possible through streaming. 

“We do want to reach consumers wherever they are, and there’s a large population, obviously, that are now outside of the traditional cable bundle,” said Fox CEO and executive chair Lachlan Murdoch last week in an earnings call with analysts. “We are designing an offering to really target those cord-cutters and cord-nevers.”