US viewership for Sunday night's American football Super Bowl failed to set a new domestic record, but the telecast did become the most-watched program in the history of domestic broadcast partner NBC.
The latest edition of the glamorous annual NFL finale – in which the Seattle Seahawks beat the New England Patriots 29-13 in San Francisco – brought in an average of 124.9 million viewers across NBC itself, the Peacock streaming service, the Telemundo Spanish-language affiliate broadcaster, NBC Sports Digital, and the NFL+ platform.
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This falls short of the all-time Super Bowl viewing record, set only last year – on that occasion, an average of 127.7 million tuned in to watch the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22.
It thus ends a streak of four years of consecutive audience increases for the Super Bowl.
The peak audience for this year's game, meanwhile, came to 137.8 million, and was achieved during the second quarter, between 7:45 and 8 pm Eastern Time – that figure does set a record, as last year's peak only came to 137.7 million.
This is also the fifth consecutive Super Bowl that has averaged over 100 million viewers domestically.
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By GlobalDataThe telecast brought in an average of 3.3 million viewers specifically for Telemundo, making it the most-watched Spanish-language Super Bowl airing of all time.
That audience peaked at 4.8 million during the iconic halftime show, which featured Puerto Rican musical artist Bad Bunny singing only in Spanish.
NBC held rights to this year's Super Bowl as part of its overall NFL rights deal, stretching between 2023 and 2034. It will also air the 2030 and 2034 editions of the iconic sporting event.
The other networks airing the Super Bowl domestically during that period are CBS, ESPN/ABC, and Fox. Since 2023, the quartet has operated on a rotating schedule, each broadcasting once every four years.
Indeed, since that deal came into effect, Super Bowl ratings have soared higher than ever before.
Rick Cordello, president of NBC Sports, has said: "The Super Bowl and the NFL once again delivered a blockbuster audience across the NBC broadcast network, Peacock, and Telemundo …
"The Super Bowl and the Olympics [which NBC and Peacock are also covering currently] are the two most powerful events in the world, and we salute our talented production, tech, and announce teams who delivered best-in-class presentations for our viewers, stations, and partners.”
Such are the massive viewing figures that the Super Bowl attracts every year, NBC managed to sell out its advertising inventory for the season-ending game ahead of the start of the 2025 NFL campaign, back in September.
That represented the earliest a US broadcaster had confirmed a sold-out Super Bowl ad inventory.
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.
