Super Bowl LIX Sets Viewership Record: How Many Watched NFL Championship, Kendrick Lamar's Halftime

For a second straight year, the Super Bowl has broken a viewership record with 126 million viewers watching the Philadelphia Eagles defeat the Kansas City Chiefs.

What Happened: A lopsided victory for the Eagles over the Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX appears to have had a minimal impact on viewership for media rights partner Fox Corporation FOXFOXA, which was able to secure $7 million to $8 million for most 30-second ad slots.

New data from Fox and Nielsen says an average of 126 million viewers watched Super Bowl LIX, up 2% from last year's record 123.7 million.

Viewership peaked at 135.7 million average viewers around the 8 p.m. ET to 8:15 p.m. ET time slot, which was in the second quarter.

The game was shown on Fox, Fox Deportes, Telemundo and streamed on Tubi and NFL digital channels.

Super Bowl LIX set a Super Bowl record for streaming with 14.5 million average viewers, including 13.6 million on Tubi.

This marks the second straight year with a viewership record for the Super Bowl if the figures hold in the final Nielsen and internal figures. This would also mark the third straight year of an average of 100 million or more viewers.

Several years ago Super Bowl viewership dipped below 100 million viewers, but new tracking for streaming and out-of-home viewership has inflated the numbers to likely more accurate figures.

Why It's Important: The record average viewership and peak audience indicate that fears of viewers dropping off were exaggerated.

The Eagles held a commanding 24-0 lead at halftime before winning 40-22. There was some concern that the companies spending millions on advertisements in the second half of the game could see fewer viewers.

Kendrick Lamar's halftime performance also drew criticism on social media from many people who would have preferred musicians from genres other than rap to perform. The viewership figures likely indicate that the halftime show was among the most watched parts of the game. The final viewership figures will be released later this week, and more game details will be provided.

A Benzinga survey ahead of the game saw 63% of people say they were most interested in watching the game, with 19% saying they were most interested in the commercials and 11% saying they were most interested in Lamar's halftime show.

The record Super Bowl viewership comes as 2024 NFL viewership was down overall, but saw several records set. Overall NFL viewership averaged 17.5 million viewers per game, down 2% year-over-year. This total marked the sixth highest in NFL history.

NFL Playoffs viewership averaged 35.2 million, not including the Super Bowl, which was down 9% year-over-year.

Streaming companies like Netflix Inc NFLX and Amazon.com AMZN owned Prime Video set records for streaming viewership with games during the season.

Netflix's two Christmas Day games averaged 24.1 million and 24.3 million viewers, marking the most-streamed regular season NFL games. Amazon saw an overall boost to its viewership during the season with its NFL Playoffs game breaking company records.

FOX Price Action: Fox stock is up 0.5% to $50.62 on Tuesday versus a 52-week trading range of $25.82 to $52.54. Fox stock is up 9.5% year-to-date in 2025 and 80.7% over the last year.

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