NFL

Rams’ Super Bowl win hauls in largest viewing audience since Patriots beat Falcons in 2017

Von Miller and the Rams were victorious on Sunday night. AP

February 15, 2022

The Rams’ 23-20 victory over the Bengals in Super Bowl LVI delivered a total audience of 112.3 million viewers across all platforms, making it the most-watched television program since the Patriots’ overtime victory over the Falcons in February 2017 (Fox, 113.7 million).

Excluding streaming and digital, the traditional television broadcast of the game averaged 99.2 million viewers on NBC, up 4 percent over the Buccaneers’ win over the Chiefs (95.2 million, CBS).

The rating, however, was down to an all-time low on network television for a Super Bowl (36.9 this year compared to 38.2 last year.) But that’s not unexpected given the trends in how television is consumed nowadays, and NBC made up the viewership in other areas.

Its stream on Peacock brought in 11.2 million viewers, far and away the most ever on a streaming platform for an NFL game. And an average of 1.9 million watched on Telemundo, which became the first Spanish-language network to televise the Super Bowl.

The highest-rated market was Cincinnati with a 46.1 rating and an 84 share. Notably, Boston was the No. 8 market in rating (42.6, with a 74 share), which was higher than Los Angeles (not in the top 10 at 36.7, with a 77 share.)

The periodic reminder: Rating is the percentage of households in a defined area that are tuned in to a program at a given time. Share is the percentage of households with televisions in use.

The halftime show, featuring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar, and 50 Cent, averaged 103.4 million viewers from 8:15-8:30 p.m.

The Super Bowl also proved the ideal lead-in to NBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. Its live primetime coverage Sunday night averaged a total audience of 24 million viewers, its largest primetime audience since the opening Sunday of the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.