The 2025 edition of the Super Bowl, which saw the Philadelphia Eagles emerge victorious against the Kansas City Chiefs was watched by 127.7 million viewers in the United States, making it not only the most watched Super Bowl in history, but also the most popular TV program of all time in the U.S. The second most watched Super Bowl was aired in the previous year, when the Kansas City Chiefs won against the San Francisco 49ers. What is the Super Bowl? The Super Bowl is the last game of the NFL season with the winners of the two football conferences, the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC), competing with each other. The game determines the champion of the National Football League. The first Super Bowl was played on January 15, 1967, following the 1966 football season. In that game, the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League defeated the Kansas City Chiefs, then of the American Football League, with a score of 35 to 10, winning the first-ever Super Bowl championship. Super Bowl giants The Super Bowl came into being as part of a merger agreement between the two rival football leagues (National Football League and the American Football League) at the time. From 1967 to 1970, the game pitted the champions of the two rival leagues against each other. Since 1971 and the completion of the merger agreement, the winners of the two conferences have squared off against each other. The Pittsburgh Steelers and the New England Patriots have won the most Super Bowl titles, with a total of six each. The Patriots have also appeared in the National Football League’s annual championship game a record 11 times, thereby topping the list for Super Bowl appearances.

The global number of TV viewers in the 'TV Viewers' segment of the media market was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total 0.2 billion users (+3.8 percent). After the ninth consecutive increasing year, the indicator is estimated to reach 5.5 billion users and therefore a new peak in 2029. Notably, the number of TV viewers of the 'TV Viewers' segment of the media market was continuously increasing over the past years.Find more information concerning Benelux and Russia. The Statista Market Insights cover a broad range of additional markets.

According to a 2024 survey, the majority of U.S. viewers used a combination of both traditional TV and video streaming services, with 64 percent of respondents subscribing to those platforms. A further one in three people interviewed stated that they only used streaming services, while four percent only viewed content on traditional TV sources, such as pay TV and over-the-air TV.

“NFL Sunday Night Football” was the most watched TV show in the United States in the 2023/2024 season, with roughly 19.8 million viewers. “NFL Monday Night Football” ranked second with approximately 12 million viewers. NFL sports broadcasts score high with viewers Football matches and other live sports events have always attracted impressive audiences in the United States, and this popularity also extends to their television broadcasts. In 2023, the Super Bowl LVII was the top primetime telecast in the U.S., drawing nearly 115 million viewers to their screens. Furthermore, none of the 10 most successful primetime programs were not football-related, explaining why 30-second advertising slots during the Super Bowl cost an average of seven million U.S. dollars. Most popular TV networks NBC was the leading ad-supported television network in the United States, with an average viewership of around 4.54 million viewers in 2023. One of its most popular shows during the 2023/2024 season included “Chicago Fire,” a drama that has been on the air for many years. The only other network to surpass four million viewers in 2023 was CBS, which aired “NCIS” as one of its most successful fictional series.

In 2024, Super Bowl LVII between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers achieved a TV rating of 42.1, up from the all-time low of 36.9 two years prior. In total, the number of Super Bowl viewers exceeded a record 123 million in 2024.

The statistic shows figures on the television ratings and viewership figures for NFL games in the United States in the 2017/18 season. The week one game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the New England Patriots was watched by almost 21.8 million viewers, and had a household rating of 12.6. The viewership figures and ratings for the 2016/17 season can be found here.

The NFL is one of the most widely televised sporting leagues in the world. The average television viewership of a regular season NFL game in 2024 was calculated to be 17.5 million. Attendance In addition to this record-breaking TV viewership, the NFL attracts thousands of fans to the stadiums each week to see their favorite teams in action. The NFL has consistently been the major American sports league with the highest average attendance, with an average of almost 70 thousand people attending each game in the 2023 season. Moreover, during the 2024 regular season, the average total home attendance per team across the entire NFL was calculated to be 588,088. The franchise with the highest total attendance for its eight regular-season home games was the Dallas Cowboys, perhaps in part to their comparatively reasonably priced tickets, costing nearly 117 U.S. dollars on average, just less than the average ticket price across the NFL at 120 U.S. dollars per ticket. Best players Since 1957, the Associated Press NFL Most Valuable Player Award has been given to the NFL player considered to have been the most outstanding during the season. Since the award's introduction, Peyton Manning has received the award the greatest number of times during his career, closely followed by Aaron Rodgers, who has received the award on four occasions. One other potential indicator of the success of an NFL player is their annual salary. The highest-paid NFL player in 2024 was Dak Prescott, quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, who earned 86.3 million U.S. dollars from salary and bonuses and 14 million U.S. dollars from endorsement deals during the 2024 season.

In 2023, NBC was the leading ad-supported television network in the United States, with an average viewership of 4.54 million, surpassing the viewership number of CBS. The latter recorded 4.51 people watchig the TV channel. Spotlight on CBS

CBS is among the oldest and most popular commercial broadcast television and radio networks in the United States. Founded in 1927, the company now operates as a subsidiary of Paramount, with all of its original programming available on the Paramount+ streaming platform. A closer look at the network's recent performance reveals that it ranked fourth among the leading television networks among U.S. adults in 2023. CBS reported an average of 676 thousand viewers between the ages of 18 to 49 that year and was only outperformed by NBC, Fox, and ABC. So what are audiences watching?

Popular television shows

According to the latest data, NFL Sunday Night Football was the most watched TV program in the United States during the 2022-2023 season. The sports broadcast, which aired on NBC, scored a respective 18.14 million viewers during that period. The three most popular fictional programs to make it into the top five were "Yellowstone", "NCIS," and "FBI" broadcast on Paramount Network and CBS.

The games of the 2024 World Series, in which the Los Angeles Dodgers achieved a five-game series win over the New York Yankees, were watched by an average of 14.34 million viewers. This marked the Dodgers' eighth World Series title in franchise history.

The U.S. viewership throughout the 2023 Super Bowl, which saw the Kansas City Chiefs defeat Philadelphia Eagles, peaked by the end of the second quarter at around 124 million. Afterwards, the number of viewers slightly decreased to 123.5 million during Rihanna's halftime show. At the end of the game, 113.6 million people tuned in, whereas the trophy celebration was only watched by 75.9 million viewers.

A survey conducted in the United States in 2023 revealed that most CTV viewers were between the ages of 18 and 34 years, with nearly two thirds of respondents using these devices on a daily basis. Meanwhile, 27 percent of people aged over 55 years watched videos via connected TVs every day.

The number of TV viewers in the 'TV Viewers' segment of the media market in Europe was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total 5.2 million users (+0.77 percent). After the tenth consecutive increasing year, the indicator is estimated to reach 682.02 million users and therefore a new peak in 2029. Notably, the number of TV viewers of the 'TV Viewers' segment of the media market was continuously increasing over the past years.Find more information concerning Russia and Worldwide. The Statista Market Insights cover a broad range of additional markets.

The Daytona 500's average TV audience has declined since 2006, with weather-related disruption becoming a recurring theme in recent years. In 2024, the event's average TV audience amounted to 5.96 million viewers, representing a decrease of around 27 percent on the previous year.

The graph shows the share of internet users who watch television live on broadcast TV channels worldwide in 2017, by region. According to the source, 88 percent of internet users in North America watched television live on broadcast TV channels in the first quarter of 2017.

The TV rating of the 97th Academy Awards amounted to 4.54 and, thus, was higher than the one recorded in the previous year. Viewership of the Academy Awards was the lowest yet in 2021 with a rating of just 2.12, down from 5.3 in 2020.

The statistic shows figures on the television ratings and viewership figures for NFL games in the United States in the 2015/16 season. The week one game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New England Patriots was watched by 27.4 million viewers, and had a household rating of 16.2. The viewership figures and ratings for the 2016/17 season can be found here.

In 2024, the average number of Bravo TV viewers in the United States dropped to approximately 436,000, continuing the trend of decline observed over the past years. The viewership has fallen significantly from 941,000 in 2016, marking a decrease of over 50 percent in just eight years.

The games of the 2024 World Series, in which the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees in a five-game series, had an average rating of 6.9, marking the highest rating in five years. The average TV viewership for the 2023 World Series stood at just over 14.3 million viewers.

According to a survey conducted in South Korea in December 2023, sports had the highest viewership rating among women sixty years and older, lying at 0.49 percent. This genre was generally more popular among men compared to women across most age groups. It was also more popular among older groups. Total average viewership that month amounted to around 0.35 percent.

The end-of-season matchup of in-state rivals The University of Alabama and Auburn University ranked as the most viewed college football game of the 2017-18 season, drawing in around 13.66 million viewers. Each of these two teams played in many of the season’s ten most watched games, and South Eastern Conference teams featured on the ranking more times than any other conference.

College football as an industry

Despite the fact that college football is technically not a professional sport, its television ratings, sponsorship numbers and team earnings would seem to indicate otherwise. Year after year, the league’s playoff and championship games are among the most watched sporting events in the United States. The sport boasts many of the largest stadiums in the entire world, dwarfing those of even the biggest professional sports clubs and attracting tens of millions of fans each season. Unpaid student athletes generate impressive revenues for their respective colleges and universities, with teams such as the Texas Longhorns, Alabama Crimson Tide and Tennessee Volunteers earning tens of millions of dollars each year.