Los Angeles (United States) (AFP) – The Seattle Seahawks Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots — and Bad Bunny’s hyped halftime show — fell short of broadcast ratings records, according to figures released on Tuesday. The Seahawks’ 29-13 victory over the Pats averaged 124.9 million viewers on NBC, streaming platform Peacock, Spanish language Telemundo, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL+, according to same-day ratings from the Nielsen media research company’s Nielsen Big Data + Panel ratings system.
That makes it the second-most watched show in US history behind the 127.7 million US viewers that watched the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 on Fox last year. In the second quarter, the game reached 137.8 million viewers, the highest peak viewership in US television history. Telemundo averaged 3.3 million viewers, marking the most-watched Super Bowl in US Spanish-language history. Telemundo’s audience peaked during the halftime show, with an average of 4.8 million viewers –- the most-watched Super Bowl halftime in Spanish-language history.
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Overall, the halftime show by Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican superstar who became the first ever halftime show headliner to sing only in Spanish, averaged 128.2 million viewers. Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show in 2025 was the most-watched ever with 133.5 million viewers. That surpassed the record of 133.4 million viewers set by Michael Jackson in 1993.
A lackluster game first half may have contributed to lower audience figures. This was also the first Super Bowl to be reported using Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel method, a hybrid system that combines data from panel households with that from smart devices such as smart TVs. Prior reporting used Nielsen’s Panel-only measurement.
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