In a slight dip from last year’s record-breaking audience numbers, Super Bowl LX generated an average of 124.9 million viewers across NBC’s platforms where it was broadcast or streamed. That is down 2.8 million from last year, which set the mark for most-watched Super Bowl ever. It still ranks Sunday’s game as the second-most-watched show in U.S. history.
In the second quarter, the game reached 137.8 million viewers, the highest peak viewership in U.S. television history.
Bad Bunny’s halftime show reached 128.2 million people, down 5.3 million viewers from Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show last year, the most-watched Super Bowl halftime show ever. Named the most-streamed artist by Spotify in 2025, Bad Bunny performed his Spanish-language songs and highlighted Puerto Rican culture, including lively, joyful choreography and featuring a couple legally married during the made-for-TV performance. President Donald Trump criticized the show on social media, calling it “disgusting.”
In falling short of last season’s mark, the game’s average audience for Sunday was potentially influenced by a largely listless game on the field. Off the field, the audience numbers incorporated a more expansive reporting methodology from ratings partner Nielsen that was implemented in 2025. That new system more accurately captures the full audience picture — if resulting in across-the-board, higher-than-historical numbers for a range of sports TV properties over the past six months.
The game was the most-watched Super Bowl in U.S. Spanish-language history, with an average of 3.3 million viewers tuning into Telemundo, peaking with 4.8 million viewers during halftime.
The broadcast benefited from a unique winter vortex around the game itself — the single-biggest TV event of any year — along with the simultaneous presence of the Winter Olympics, which draws casual fans across the country to tune in for televised sports.
A third powerful force at play was widespread attention around the halftime act, which drew a competing event through Turning Point USA, a Kid Rock-led concert that at one point registered 6 million concurrent viewers on YouTube, although that number has not been certified by an industry-standard measurement system.
As of Tuesday, the Bad Bunny halftime show video on the NFL’s YouTube channel had more than 57 million views, while the archived video of Turning Point’s halftime show on its YouTube channel had 21 million views.
Last year’s Super Bowl on Fox generated the previous record 127.7 million viewers, along with 133.5 million viewers for Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show, another record.
Given the improved tracking methodology and the NFL’s relentless popularity, the 2025 season was the NFL’s second best for season-long TV ratings since they began being monitored in 1988, with an average of 18.7 million viewers.
Analysis
Considering the lack of juice for this Super Bowl, the rating is still excellent. The NFL is not going to break its own Super record every year, and the variables around this one make it easy to understand a slight drop.
There was no Tom Brady, no Patrick Mahomes nor barely anyone on the field a non-Fantasy Football player could name. The game was boring with its lack of offense, the result never being in doubt, and really not many memorable plays. If the Patriots carried their weight and kept the game closer, then the final number may have beaten last year’s Eagles-Chiefs game.
However, the NFL is the most dominant programming in sports and entertainment, so it is still unbeatable and the envy of every other event. This will undoubtedly be by far the highest-rated program of the year, as it is every year.
NBC had a strong production, but the rule is generally the closer the game, the higher the rating. That said, Bad Bunny did not hurt. There was a lot of political talk about his performance, but the facts are he is very popular. And it showed — even if he didn’t do as big a number as Lamar last year.
That said, the NFL wants to become more international and will probably focus on a lot of the social and global numbers. At the end of the day, any other league in the world would be envious of these ratings, even if they weren’t up to last year’s. — Andrew Marchand
