While Super Bowl LVI drew a record audience in the U.S., Canadian audiences were down from last year, even with almost half of all Canadians (45%) tuning in to at least part of Sunday’s game as the Los Angeles Rams captured the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
Audiences peaked at 11.4 million viewers during the Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show, featuring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, and 50 Cent.
The most-watched broadcast since last year’s Super Bowl, the game was carried on CTV, TSN and RDS in Canada, attracting an average audience of 8.1 million viewers, according to preliminary Numeris data. Overall, the broadcast drew 16.9 million unique Canadian viewers or nearly one in two Canadians who watched some or all of the game. That’s down from the 17.6 million unique Canadian viewers who tuned into Super Bowl LV in 2021, although this year’s halftime show drew a slightly higher peak audience (11.4M vs. last year’s 11M when The Weeknd performed).
Bell Media says Super Bowl content also drove engagement across TSN’s social media platforms, garnering 5.5 million views, with 3 million of those on TikTok. Overall, the 2021 NFL season attracted significant engagement across the sports network’s digital platforms, with live streaming viewership of NFL games growing by +34%, compared to the 2020 season.
In the U.S., Super Bowl LVI averaged a total audience of 112.3 million viewers on NBC, Telemundo, Peacock, NBC Sports Digital, NFL Digital platforms and Yahoo Sports, reaching a total of 167 million viewers.
NBC Universal says the broadcast was the most-watched show in five years, drawing 101.1 million TV viewers to NBC and Telemundo. It also broke NFL streaming records, led by Peacock, with an average minute audience of 11.2 million viewers across all digital platforms.
NBC viewership alone was up four per cent over last year’s game, while the American half-time show audience grew seven per cent year-over-year.
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