Super Bowl LVII was most-watched telecast ever

Super Bowl LVII was the most-watched U.S.-based telecast of all time, according to revised data announced Tuesday by ratings agency Nielson.

The Kansas City Chiefs‘ 38-35 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles on Feb. 12 drew an average of 115.1 million viewers across all platforms, nearly 2 million more than Nielsen’s previous announcement.

The updated numbers show that this year’s Super Bowl surpassed the previous record set in 2015, when 114.4 million people watched the Patriots beat the Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX. The next-highest-rated telecast was Super Bowl LI in 2017 between the Patriots and Falcons, which was viewed by nearly 113.7 million.

Nielsen did not start accounting for out-of-home streaming estimates until 2021, so it is unclear whether the Super Bowl telecasts in 2015 or 2017 would have surpassed 115.1 million viewers.

Nielsen had previously announced in February that Kansas City’s comeback victory had an average viewership of 113 million.

Fox Sports said in a statement that the change in ratings data was “the result of a thorough review by Nielsen that revealed irregularities in the encoding that enables Nielsen’s measurement of TV viewing as well as in the measurement of out-of-home viewing.”

Nielsen’s figure includes people who watched the game on the Fox or Fox Deportes TV networks, or streamed the game on Fox digital properties or NFL+.

A Nielsen representative told the Los Angeles Times that a potential data irregularity initially was identified by the NFL, which notified the agency that the league-owned NFL Network could be getting credit for viewers who were actually watching the game on one of Fox’s platforms.

“We appreciate the support and collaboration from our partners at Fox and the NFL to correct previously unknown errors to ultimately provide a more accurate measure for this year’s total audience for the game,” the representative said in a statement published by the Times.

Information from Reuters was used in this report.