The official numbers are in.
Super Bowl 60 wasn’t the nail-biting affair that many expected, but it was awfully close to becoming the most-watched Super Bowl in history.
The Seattle Seahawks cruised past the New England Patriots 29-13 to win the franchise’s second Super Bowl. Drake Maye, the MVP runner-up, was sacked six times and coughed up the football three times in the loss.
Now, we finally have the final viewership numbers for the big game.
On Tuesday evening, NBC Sports announced that Super Bowl 60 averaged 124.9 million viewers. The game peaked at 137.8 million viewers in the second quarter, which the network says is “the highest peak viewership in U.S. TV history.”
It’s the most-watched program in NBC history, and the second-most-watched in American television history. It fell just short of breaking the record set by Super Bowl 59 between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs last year, 127.7 million viewers.
President Donald Trump was critical of the Bad Bunny Super Bowl halftime show. Turning Point USA ran an alternative halftime show as well. NBC still enjoyed historic viewership for the big game.
As unpopular as many NFL owners are, and as much criticism as Roger Goodell has faced, one thing remains certain: The NFL is still the king of American professional sports, and it’s not particularly close.
Despite running three Christmas Day games with very little hype, the NFL easily beat the NBA’s slate of holiday games in viewership. Again, there was no contest in terms of ratings there.
The Seahawks don’t have the same national following as clubs like the Chiefs, Eagles, Dallas Cowboys, San Francisco 49ers, Pittsburgh Steelers or Green Bay Packers. The fact a lopsided Super Bowl between Seattle and New England scored this many views is just a reminder that the NFL is miles ahead of the competition.
