Super Bowl LVIII: Sets New Record For Most Viewed Telecast In American History
With their Super Bowl LVIII broadcast, CBS achieved significant success.
Sunday night's Super Bowl LVIII was seen by over 200 million viewers in some capacity.
The network declared on Monday that Sunday night’s Super Bowl program, which saw the Kansas City Chiefs defeat the San Francisco 49ers in overtime, was the most watched in history. Over all of CBS’s platforms, the game had an average of 123.4 million viewers.
Of those viewers, 120 million were exclusive to CBS, making it the greatest audience ever for a single network in history. At least 200 million people watched some portion of the game on CBS, Paramount+, Nickelodeon, or Univision, making it the most streamed Super Bowl in history on the platform.
On Sunday night at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs defeated the 49ers 25–22 thanks to a game-winning drive in overtime. Mahomes won his third Super Bowl MVP title as a result of the Chiefs’ second consecutive Super Bowl victory. It was the first-ever game of its sort to be played in Las Vegas and the third that Jim Nantz and Tony Romo co-called on CBS.
The Chiefs soon became one of the most well-liked and prosperous teams in the league under Mahomes and head coach Andy Reid. In four of the previous five seasons, they have made it to the Super Bowl; in the other two, they have advanced to the AFC conference championship game at the very least.
The bond between pop sensation Taylor Swift and Kansas Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce also helped the team’s popularity this season. She traveled from Tokyo, where she had given a concert on Saturday night, to Las Vegas in time for the Super Bowl, and she went to 13 Chiefs games this season in support of her partner. Her presence often increased viewership and the popularity of the NFL overall.
In contrast, with an average viewership of 115.1 million across Fox’s networks and platforms, the Chiefs vs. Eagles Super Bowl from the previous year set a record. The game in 2023 is currently the second-most-watched show in the history of American television. There were just two Super Bowls with an average viewership of less than 100 million, which dates back to 2010.
Next year, Fox will telecast the Super Bowl from New Orleans. The game will go to NBC in 2026, followed by ABC and ESPN in 2027, before coming back to CBS in 2028.
