NFL News: NBC SPORTS’ COVERAGE OF SUPER BOWL LVI AVERAGES TOTAL AUDIENCE DELIVERY OF 112.3 MILLION VIEWERS, REACHES 167 MILLION

Rams-Bengals is the Most-Watched Show in 5 Years

101.1 Million TV Viewers Watched Super Bowl Across NBC & Telemundo

Led by Peacock, Super Bowl LVI is Most-Streamed NFL Game Ever, with Average Minute Audience of 11.2 Million Viewers Across All Digital Endpoints

Telemundo Delivers Largest Spanish-Language NFL Game Audience Ever

Post-Super Bowl Beijing Olympics Delivers Top NBC Olympics Audience Since Opening Sunday of 2018 Winter Games – A Stretch of 41 Olympic Nights – Capping NBCUniversal’s “Super Gold Sunday”

STAMFORD, Conn. – February 15, 2022  The Los Angeles Rams’ down-to-the-wire 23-20 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI on NBC, Telemundo, Peacock, NBC Sports Digital, NFL Digital platforms and Yahoo Sports mobile properties averaged a Total Audience Delivery of 112.3 million viewers to rank as the most-watched show in five years – since Super Bowl LI in February 2017 (113.7 million TAD on Fox).

With a total reach of 167 million viewers, Super Bowl LVI capped the NFL’s Biggest Season Ever with an expanded 17-game regular season schedule and a thrilling postseason which included seven consecutive one-score games across the Divisional Playoffs, Conference Championship Games, and the Super Bowl.

“The Super Bowl once again delivered a massive audience, which included NBC and the unmatched power of broadcast television as well as first-ever presentations on Peacock and Telemundo, and led into our most-watched Olympics coverage in four years,” said Mark Lazarus, Chairman, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming.

“We’re gratified that our strategy of combining the two most powerful events in the world – the Super Bowl and the Olympics – on ‘Super Gold Sunday’ has paid off in such a big way,” said NBC Sports Chairman Pete Bevacqua. “We look forward to continuing this strategy into the future.”

NBC Sports’ presentation on “Super Gold Sunday” registered a multitude of highlights and milestones including:

Television’s Biggest Day…In Two Languages

  • Super Bowl LVI viewership on NBC peaked at 104.4 million from 7:45-8:00 p.m. ET.
  • The game (6:35-10:09 p.m. ET) averaged 99.2 million viewers on NBC – topping by 4% last year’s game (95.2 million for Chiefs-Buccaneers).
     
  • The Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show on NBC, starring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar, along with special guest 50 Cent, averaged 103.4 million viewers from 8:15-8:30 p.m. ET – topping last year’s halftime show by 7% (96.7 million from 8:30-8:45 p.m. ET).
     
  • Telemundo on Sunday became the first-ever Spanish-language broadcast network to air the Super Bowl and averaged 1.9 million viewers – by far the most-watched NFL game in U.S. Spanish-language history.

Most Streamed Super Bowl Ever

  • Led by Peacock – which streamed the Super Bowl for the first time — the Average Minute Audience (AMA) for the Super Bowl live stream via Peacock, NBC Sports Digital platforms, NFL Digital platforms, Rams and Bengals mobile properties, and Yahoo Sports mobile properties was 6.0 million according to the traditional counting of streaming (which is the comparable metric to last year’s 5.7 million).  The delivery rises to 11.2 million AMA viewers, which takes into account co-viewing from connected devices.
  • This year’s Super Bowl streaming figure was established without any unauthenticated access on desktop and connected devices, in contrast to previous Super Bowls.

 
Beijing Olympics Delivers Best Primetime Audience in 4 Years & Most-Streamed Olympic Night Ever

  • Sunday night’s live primetime Beijing Olympics coverage after the Super Bowl averaged a TAD of 24.0 million viewers – the largest NBC Olympics primetime audience since the opening Sunday of the 2018 Winter Games, a span of 41 Olympic nights.
  • Led by Peacock, Sunday night’s primetime show delivers largest Olympic streaming audience ever (1.5 million viewers).
  • Sunday night’s Olympic coverage kept the large audience tuned in for what was the longest post-Super Bowl show (97 minutes) since post-Super Bowl XXIII on NBC in January 1989 (two-hour part one of “Brotherhood of the Rose” miniseries).

Television viewership figures are based upon official data from Nielsen.

New iSpot metrics further highlight the dominance of the Super Bowl among NBCU advertising partners:

  • The average ad reached 106 million viewers, while the game generated 4.39 billion verified household ad impressions across all platforms in 216 minutes.
  • The Super Bowl’s 81 national ads accounted for more than 40% of all TV ad impressions on linear TV on Sunday.
     
  • The animated two-minute NFL ad at 8:08 p.m. ET during the halftime show had the highest in-home audience at 119 million viewers across NBC, Telemundo and Peacock.
     
  • NBCUniversal-owned networks accounted for 69% of all household ad impressions for the day.
  • The NBC broadcast network delivered 6.4 billion TV ad impressions across its full broadcast day including pre-game broadcasts and Olympic programming, marking the first time a Super Bowl and Winter Olympics took place at the same time.

Metered Markets

Cincinnati (home of the Bengals) led local markets with a 46.1/84 rating, while Los Angeles (Super Bowl host city and home of the Rams) delivered a 36.7/77.

–NBC SPORTS—

COURTESY NFLmedia.com

Posted in NFL