The Super Bowl is the one event every year that is all but guaranteed to deliver huge numbers in ratings and viewership. The game has something for just about everybody: a football matchup between the two best teams in the NFL, a halftime show will a big-name performer, and hilarious/controversial commercials in between plays. Super Bowl LII delivered an intense face-off between the Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots, Justin Timberlake at halftime, and David Harbour in multiple ads throughout the night. Now, the numbers are in for how many people tuned in to watch Super Bowl LII, and the totals are staggering. The total audience was more than 100 million viewers and numerous TV records were broken.
The total audience for Super Bowl LII was 106 million viewers across all platforms, which includes the broadcast airing and streaming video. The total comes from the combined numbers from NBC, NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports app, NBC.com TV Everywhere, Universo, EnVivo app, NFL.com, NFL Mobile, the Yahoo Sports app, and go90. The 106 million figure is expected to rise later in the week once Out Of Home viewers can be calculated. While the exact Out Of Home figure obviously isn't known yet, estimates put the increase at several million people.
Super Bowl LII averaged 103.4 million viewers on NBC alone, placing it at the #10 spot in the top 10 most-watched TV programs in U.S. television history. Interestingly, eight of the other nine in the top 10 are also Super Bowl Games. The outlier is the M.A.S.H. finale from 1983. On the streaming side, 2.02 million viewers watched, making Super Bowl LII the most live-streamed Super Bowl ever. On the ratings front, the Super Bowl scored a rating of 43.1 in the key 18-49 age demographic, which is a 5% boost from the previous Super Bowl showdown between the Eagles and the Patriots back in 2005. Viewership for this latest Eagles/Patriots championship game is up 20% from 2005.
Unsurprisingly, the ratings in Philadelphia and Boston were well-above the national average. Philadelphia scored a 56.2 rating, which is the market's best ever for a Super Bowl. Boston was a bit lower with a 55.9 rating, making it only fourth among the Patriots' 10 Super Bowl appearances. The halftime show (headlined by Justin Timberlake) was actually watched by more people on average than the rest of the game. 106.6 million viewers watched Timberlake's performance, scheduled from 8:15-8:30 p.m. ET.
Basically, Super Bowl LII provided a big night for NBC and the various streaming outlets. The night seemed to mostly go off without a hitch, aside from some brief blackouts. For those who really couldn't care less about football, the commercials were pretty fantastic. Ranging from David Harbour's Tide ads to the fake Crocodile Dundee trailer to the Alexa spoof, there were plenty of commercials delivering laughs. The Dodge MLK ad wasn't entirely well-received, but the other commercials were hits.
For what you can watch on the small screen now that the Super Bowl is done for 2018, be sure to check out our midseason TV premiere guide.
