Super Bowl ratings revealed: How the game and Bad Bunny’s halftime show stacked up against last year

Sunday night’s Super Bowl and Bad Bunny fell short of setting records for most watched U.S. broadcast and halftime show.

Seattle’s 29-13 victory over New England averaged 124.9 million viewers on NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL+, according to Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel rating system.

That fell short of the 127.7 million U.S. viewers that tuned in for Philadelphia’s 40-22 victory over Kansas City last year on Fox.

However, Super Bowl 60 is the most-watched program in NBC history. The network is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.

Bad Bunny’s halftime show averaged 128.2 million viewers from 8:15-8:30 p.m. Eastern. That would make it the fourth-most watched halftime behind Kendrick Lamar (133.5 million, 2025), Michael Jackson (133.4 million, 1993) and Usher (129.3 million, 2024).

Peak audience sets U.S. record

The audience for the game peaked at 137.8 million viewers during the second quarter (7:45-8 p.m. Eastern), which is a record. That surpassed the previous mark of 137.7 million during the second quarter of last year’s Super Bowl.

This year’s audience ended a streak where the last four Super Bowls had experienced audience increases. It is the fifth straight year the game has averaged over 100 million viewers.

After three straight years of Super Bowls that came down to the final minute, the last two have lacked excitement.

Sunday’s game was the second in Super Bowl history in which a touchdown had not been scored in the first three quarters. Seattle was up 12-0 going into the final 15 minutes.

Last year’s game was decided in the first half as Philadelphia built a 24-0 lead en route to a 40-22 victory.

Bad Bunny vs. Kid Rock

The Turning Point USA halftime show featuring Kid Rock peaked at 5 million at one point on YouTube.

Nielsen did not measure any of the YouTube live stream viewership. Of the linear networks that carried it, the only one Nielsen measures is broadcast network Charge! Full Nielsen ratings for the prior week will be released on Wednesday.

According to YouTube figures though, there have been 21,208,583 views of the alternate halftime show through Tuesday night, according to the conservative organization’s page. Bad Bunny’s show has already had 61,311,972 views.

Halftime show on social media

Total social media consumption of Bad Bunny’s halftime show set a record of 4 billion views after the first 24 hours, according to the NFL and Ripple Analytics. That is a 137% increase over last year.

The social media figures include fans, owned platforms, broadcast partners and influencers.

The NFL said over 55% of all social views came from international markets.

Full global viewership for the halftime show is expected to be available early next week.

Spanish audience record

Telemundo averaged 3.3 million viewers, making it the most-watched Super Bowl Spanish-language broadcast in the United States. The Super Bowl has been televised in Spanish in the U.S. since 2014.

The audience peaked during the halftime show, averaging 4.8 million viewers — also making it the most-watched Super Bowl halftime in Spanish-language history.

Olympics benefit from Super Bowl

NBC’s “Primetime in Milan” Olympic show, which featured the women’s downhill and team figure skating events, averaged 42 million viewers, the network’s largest Winter Olympics audience since Day 2 of the 2014 Sochi Games.

It also was a 73% increase from the Olympics show after Super Bowl 56 (24.3 million).

“The Super Bowl and the NFL once again delivered a blockbuster audience across the NBC broadcast network, Peacock and Telemundo, and provided an unprecedented lead-in to our Primetime in Milan coverage,” NBC Sports President Rick Cordella said in a statement. “The Super Bowl and the Olympics 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.”

Other NFL figures

The NFL playoffs averaged 37 million viewers the first three weekends, up 5% from last year and the second-most watched in the last 10 years.

That followed a regular season that averaged 18.7 million, the second-highest since audience averages began being kept in 1988. It was a 10% increase from last season.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

—Joe Reedy, AP Sports Writer

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