On Tuesday, the official TV ratings for Super Bowl LV were revealed, and they were quite shocking.
The total audience for the game was set at 96.4 million viewers, which may look to be very impressive, but the TV ratings were actually down about nine percent. It represented the lowest since 2007 (93.1 million), when the Indianapolis Colts defeated the Chicago Bears.
“It’s hard to spin these Super Bowl ratings into a positive story. The numbers are down despite a highly-touted matchup of star QBs, snowstorms in the Northeast, etc.,” John Ourand of Sports Business Journal wrote on Twitter. “But this game will be the most viewed U.S. telecast of 2021 by a long shot. The ratings drop of about 9% is in line with the regular season ratings drop of 7%. The NFL remains as the most powerful TV product in America.”
Super Bowl LV between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Kansas City Chiefs may have had bad TV ratings, but CBS also noted that it drew an average minute audience of 5.7 million viewers on streaming platforms, the highest ever for an NFL contest.
This is the second time in just three years that the Super Bowl failed to eclipse 100 million viewers.
Leading into the game, it was highly touted as the Old GOAT in Tom Brady against the up and coming GOAT in Patrick Mahomes. The game did not live up to expectations as the Tampa Bay Bucs defense did work against Mahomes and never let the Chiefs score a touchdown all game long.
