The Superbowl has already taken place and has become the biggest sporting event of the year so far this year. As expected, the National Football League (NFL) final has been as spectacular as expected: with an incredible halftime show starring Rihanna and dozens of highly anticipated commercials aired.
Such is the relevance of the Super Bowl that it has caused the chapter of The Last of Us to be brought forward and has led to Rihanna’s return to the stage, pregnant and after many years without releasing new music. But how has this success translated into audience figures?
Super Bowl viewership in recent years
Normally, the official global viewership data is released a couple of days after the game takes place. However, before the start of the Super Bowl, Fox was already arguing that they could achieve something unusual by setting the record for the most-watched Super Bowl of all time. In the last decade, the audience figures were as follows:
- 2022: Rams vs. Bengals—99.18M
- 2021: Bucs vs. Chiefs—91.63M
- 2020: Chiefs vs. 49ers—100.45M
- 2019: Patriots vs. Rams—98.19M
- 2018: Eagles vs. Patriots—103.39M
- 2017: Patriots vs. Falcons—111.32M
- 2016: Broncos vs. Panthers—111.86M
- 2015: Patriots vs. Seahawks—114.44M
- 2014: Seahawks vs. Broncos—112.19M
- 2013: Ravens vs. 49ers—108.69M
- 2012: Giants vs. Patriots—111.35M
- 2011: Packers vs. Steelers—111.01M
- 2010: Saints vs. Colts—106.48M
Achieving a record, especially considering the slight decline in viewership over the past five years, seems crazy. It was 2015 when the record was achieved, with a halftime show starring Bruno Mars. But Michael Mulvihill, FOX’s head of strategy and analytics, said before the game that the network was looking for 115 million, a new record. And they might have gotten it.
Beyond the direct audience, the data from the previous edition collected by Adglow are very significant: on Facebook there were more than 240 million interactions during the night of the event through more than 64 million users. On Instagram, up to 150 million interactions were reached by 44 million users. And on Twitter, 27 million tweets about the event were recorded. In the minute after the halftime show alone, 162,000 tweets were written, 5,400 per second.
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Other very interesting data about the previous year was the increase in mobile devices (more than 90% of interactions came from here) and the rise of videos, reaching 262 million reproductions. Therefore, for this year we expect a movement of up to 418 million dollars in advertising, and even surpass the previous year in interactions.
We still have to wait a bit to have the official data, but if we take into account that the previous year was “weak” compared to others, and that this show was more eagerly awaited than any other in recent years, it is more than likely that a new record has been achieved.
