This Sunday’s Super Bowl, the showpiece finale of the 2025-26 NFL campaign, will pit the New England Patriots against the Seattle Seahawks in a rematch of the 2015 edition. Each year, the Super Bowl is typically the most-watched broadcast on US television, bar none, illustrating the scale of the historic fixture.
With rampant cord-cutting becoming a theme across the US media landscape, the traditional linear broadcast of the Super Bowl has remained an annual high point for TV companies that are otherwise hemorrhaging viewers.
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Domestic broadcast rights to the Super Bowl are split between four companies: Paramount-owned CBS, Fox Corp’s Fox, NBCUniversal’s NBC, and Disney-owned ABC and ESPN. Since 2023, the quartet has operated on a rotating schedule, each broadcasting once every four years.
Prior to that, rights were held by CBS, NBC, and Fox on a similar three-year cycle. The addition of ABC/ESPN to that mix means it is now more important than ever for these broadcasters to maximize their quadrennial coverage slot.
It helps that, since the 2023 agreement, Super Bowl ratings have soared higher than ever before. The most-watched Super Bowl ever took place in 2025, when the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Kansas City Chiefs with 127.7 million average viewers watching the event (including out-of-home coverage).
The Kansas City Chiefs’ domination in the first half of the 2020s and the Philadelphia Eagles’ rabid home fanbase set the game up for a major viewership surge. Although viewership has trended upwards for several years, the standard set in 2025 may prove too high for this year’s edition to match.
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By GlobalDataWill NBC notch record viewership?
GlobalData Sport associate analyst Tom Subak-Sharpe explained: “Viewership expectations for Super Bowl LX are strong, though record-setting seems unlikely. Last year’s Super Bowl LIX pulled in 127.7 million viewers across platforms—a high bar.
“The upcoming Patriots–Seahawks matchup lacks some of the national hype brought by the Chiefs' dominance or pop culture icons like Taylor Swift. While betting interest and devoted fan bases will drive engagement, without broader cultural hooks, casual viewers may decide not to tune into the action from Levi's Stadium.”
The aforementioned 2015 Super Bowl, an overtime Patriots victory that is widely considered among the greatest in the sport’s history, averaged 114.4 million viewers, the most-watched in history up to that point. Although that record has since been beaten, the lack of out-of-home viewership tracking prior to 2020 means the real viewership figure is likely much higher.
While this proves that the Patriots-Seahawks matchup can be a winning one for broadcasters, it remains to be seen how this can translate into an altogether different broadcast landscape in 2026.
The growth of streaming over the following decade could be a decisive factor. NBCU’s Peacock streaming service didn't exist the last time the Patriots and the Seahawks met in the Super Bowl. Now the service boasts 44 million subscribers as of January 2026, and is increasingly crucial to NBCU's future plans. This is not NBCU-specific. 13.4 million streamed the 2025 fixture on Fox-owned Tubi, which contributed towards that overall record total.
The last Super Bowl NBC aired took place in 2022, when the Los Angeles Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals, drawing a 99.18 million average viewership on linear networks, and an additional 11.2 million on Peacock, totaling 112.3 million (including the Spanish-language alternate broadcast on Telemundo), the second-highest ever to that point.
Peacock has only grown since then, and if the media giant can once again leverage its user base into digital viewership on top of the traditional linear audience, it could claim the all-time crown from Fox.
Subak-Sharpe continued: “If Peacock and Telemundo deliver seamless streaming alongside NBC’s linear coverage, though, NBCU could broaden its audience reach enough to approach recent records, if not surpass last year’s peak.”
Can advertising revenue surpass Fox's benchmark?
2025’s Super Bowl LIX delivered for Fox not just in the viewership stakes, but also on the advertising side. Fox sold out of advertising inventory for the February 2025 game as early as November 2024, and ultimately generated over $800 million in revenue from the lucrative TV slots.
For 2026, NBC aimed even higher, reportedly seeking at least $7 million per 30-second commercial. This proved to be a gamble that paid off quickly, with NBC selling out of Super Bowl inventory back in September, days before the 2025-26 season even began.
NBCU’s 2026 multi-event strategy – which is powered by three major rights packages: the Super Bowl, the Winter Olympics, and the FIFA World Cup – ultimately delivered record ad sales for the broadcaster, with unparalleled interest standing as testament to the value top-tier sports rights have for broadcasters looking to attract varied revenue streams.
“NBCU’s early, full sell-out of ad space for Super Bowl LX—combined with its strongest sports upfront yet—marks a decisive shift,” said Subak-Sharpe.
“No longer merely riding the live sports wave, NBCU is setting the standard. Demand is surging across sectors—from CPG (consumer packaged goods) and entertainment to finance, alcohol, and quick-service restaurants—and increased investment from pharma underscores confidence in NBCU’s reach. Particularly notable is over 20% growth in digital Super Bowl ad spending, pointing to streaming and cross-platform marketing as the next frontier.
“NBCU is clearly aiming to surpass Fox’s ad revenues from last year—and doing so will carry both symbolic and practical weight. Strong ad revenue gives NBCU essential cash flow to invest in premium rights deals—whether for MLB, the Olympics, or the World Cup—that are reshaping the sports media landscape. Even more critically, it affirms the relevance and dominance of live sports television in an era increasingly driven by streaming.”
Back in July, NBCU chair of global advertising and partnerships, Mark Marshall, commented: “In a year set to redefine industry benchmarks, ad-supported reach remains the most influential force in media.”
With that in mind, NBCU’s plan to weaponize its quadrennial Super Bowl broadcast, which has attracted brands such as Uber Eats, Salesforce, and Google Gemini, shows that traditional broadcasters can still galvanize significant advertising revenue for tentpole events in the face of digital and social media advertising’s growing impact.
Will it matter?
Fox Corp’s fiscal year 2025 (July 2024 to June 2025) financial report was headlined by a 17% growth in revenue up to $16.3 billion, including a 26% rise in advertising revenue, which grew to $7 billion. The broadcaster highlighted the Super Bowl, despite coming early in the year, as a significant moment that helped push those high figures. Despite this, subscriber estimates for its sports networks (FS1, FS2, Big Ten Network, and Fox Deportes) all fell by multiple million.
In its filings, Fox stated: “Our business depends on the popularity of special sports events”. With that in mind, Fox is likely to find it a long four years before the broadcaster has the Super Bowl again, as the media giant must maintain its voracious appetite for sports rights without the backstop of Super Bowl revenue.
NBCUniversal will likely encounter a similar problem. 2026 is set to be a major year for the broadcaster with the convergence of Super Bowl, Olympic, and FIFA World Cup rights promising a massive revenue surge. However, the growing burden of its sports media rights portfolio, which now includes basketball’s NBA, could make this year a make-or-break one.
That rights deal is worth $2.5 billion per year, on top of all the other commitments, and contributed to NBCU’s return to six-figure loss-making in 2025, despite revenue growth and a profitable 2024. Although that loss will likely prove negligible when compared to what 2026 may bring, it nonetheless stands as a warning for what will happen in the interim years before NBC’s next Super Bowl, should the company fail to capitalize on its opportunity over the coming 11 months.
Ultimately, this Super Bowl could have repercussions that hit not just NBCU, but Fox, Paramount, and Disney, too. Subak-Sharpe summarized: “That said, a headline-grabbing viewership number alone won’t shield NBCU from escalating costs—rights fees, production expenses, and investment in streaming infrastructure are all spiralling.
“Advertiser expectations will skyrocket; future Super Bowl performances will be measured against whatever benchmark LX sets. So, achieving record ad revenue isn’t just a trophy—it’s the baseline for continued success.”
