#Super Bowl LVI rebounds in ratings with more than 112M viewers

Super Bowl LVI got a massive ratings rebound on Sunday after the NFL championship game took a painful hit in viewership last year.

Sunday’s big game, which pitted the Los Angeles Rams against the Cincinnati Bengals, delivered a whopping 112.3 million viewers across NBC, Telemundo, streaming service Peacock, NBC Sports Digital, NFL Digital platforms and Yahoo Sports mobile properties, Nielsen said Tuesday.

That’s an improvement over last year’s Super Bowl, which averaged roughly 96.4 million viewers across CBS and streaming. This year’s big numbers wrap up a season that saw ratings surge roughly 10% overall from last year with 17.1 million viewers a game on average.

NBC’s Super Bowl LVI broadcast drove the lion’s share of the ratings with 99.2 million viewers, the company said Tuesday. Like many regular season games, this year’s Super Bowl was a nail-biter as the Rams narrowly beat the Bengals with a final score of 23 to 20.

The widely praised halftime show featuring Dr Dre, Eminem, Mary J Blige, Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar, likewise kept viewers tuned in. Up 7% from last year’s stint by The Weeknd, the Pepsi-sponsored hip-hip bonanza had an average of 103.4 million viewers in the 8:15 -8:30 PM ET slot, NBC said.

Overall, Super Bowl LVI was the most-watched single telecast in two years. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 Super Bowl averaged about 113 million viewers for Fox.

Super Bowl XLIX, which pitted the New England Patriots against the Seattle Seahawks in 2015, remains No. 1 in viewers all-time with 114.44 million viewers.