Here's Why The Super Bowl Was The Most Watched Ever
Super Bowl LVIII between the Chiefs and 49ers averaged 123.4 million viewers across all CBS platforms, marking the most-watched telecast in history.
The game topped last year's record high of 115 million viewers between the Chiefs and Eagles.
The network says 120 million viewers watched the game on the main CBS feed, the largest audience for a single network on record.
What made this Super Bowl more popular than any of the 57 prior? There are a few reasons. Let us break them down:
The pregame interest was perceptible. The Kansas City Chiefs emerged as the villains of the NFL. They were trying to become the first team in the past two decades to win back-to-back Super Bowls.
Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce are two of the only active players who have crossed over into the mainstream spotlight.
Specifically, Kelce.
His romance with Taylor Swift undoubtedly contributed to the spiked interest in the game. Never before has an active Super Bowl player been in a relationship with the biggest star in the country.
No one in the NFL in the 80s was dating Michael Jackson.
The Swift phenomenon not only attracted a specific demographic of females ages 12-17, who don't generally watch the NFL, but it also morphed into a political affair of late.
Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy suggested Swift is a PSYOP planted to endorse Biden on the biggest stage in sports. Several grifters on the right shared that same wonky theory.
Political topics often increase ratings, as both sides of the aisle subsequently take on a rooting interest.
Further, the hypothesis that the NFL is rigged for the Chiefs gained traction in recent weeks.
It wasn't just people on the fringes. I discussed with Will Cain on his Fox News Digital show Monday how influential people online have convinced their followers that the NFL rigs outcomes to benefit the Chiefs.
Nothing behooves a telecast more than hate-watching. A whole bunch of people hate-watched the Super Bowl this season because of the Chiefs, Taylor Swift, and the conspiracies.
CBS appreciates the assist.
And there are the more traditional perks from which the game benefited.
The Chiefs and 49ers are legacy franchises with wide national interest. The teams are among the most watched organizations annually, trailing only the Dallas Cowboys.
The game also ticked down to the last second. Literally. The Chiefs won the Super Bowl on a walk-off touchdown in overtime.
Television ratings are measured by the average viewer per minute. Thus, the closer the game, the longer more people watch.
Notably, the Chiefs-Bucs in 2021 averaged only 95 million, despite the much-anticipated Brady vs. Mahomes matchup, because the game was over by the 4th quarter.
Tampa won, 31-9.
So, Super Bowl LVIII was about as perfect of a storm as CBS and the NFL could’ve asked for. Thereby, we don’t expect the rating to be topped for a while.
Even if the Chiefs face off against a team like the 49ers next season and Swift is still dating Kelce, the sequel is never as intriguing as the first installment.
Plus, the NFL is bound for a few more Bengals-Rams Super Bowls, as in the one in 2022 that drew 30 million fewer viewers than the game on Sunday.