Super Bowl LVIII had an estimated average audience of 123.7 million people, with 120.3 million watching on CBS alone, making it the largest television audience on record in the United States for a single network. The numbers were up 7.4% on the previous year and up 21.9% on the year before that.
The football game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs, which ended 25-22 after additional time, drew a combined average household rating of 43.5, and combined household share of 83. The figures are based on the average audience over the duration of the programme, from 6.40pm to 10.45pm Eastern Time.
The broadcast averaged 120.3 million viewers on CBS, with an additional 2.3 million viewers watched the Spanish-language broadcast on Univision, and a further 1.2 million on Nickelodeon and Nick-at-Nite.
Audience estimates include viewing on digital television recorders, online viewing, Paramount+, and the digital properties of CBS Sports, Univision and the NFL, including NFL+, and out-of-home viewing.
Some of the increase may be down to counting out-of-home viewer in all states. Nielsen began including out-of-home viewers in some markets from 2020.
A record 202.4 million watched at least six minutes of the game across all networks. That was up 10% on the 183.6 million the previous year.
It was the second consecutive year that the Super Bowl had an average audience of more than 100 million, after four of the five previous games fell short of that figure.
The Apollo 11 moon landing in Juluy 1969 is estimated to have been watched by 125-150 million viewers across the three networks available at the time: ABC, CBS and NBC. The feature-length finale of the drama M*A*S*H in February 1983 had an audience of just under 106 million viewers, also on CBS, with a total audience of 121.6 million. The top 10 most-viewed programmes in the United States have otherwise all been coverage of the Super Bowl on various networks.