112 million football fans and commercial enthusiasts watched the Super Bowl this year
It was a big day for the Los Angeles Rams and NBC's Peacock
Aux News Super Bowl
Whether they were attracted to the big-budget, star-studded commercials or a particular player’s sideburns, fans turned out in massive numbers for this year’s Super Bowl. The showdown between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals attracted more than 112 million viewers and potential crypto investors. Thankfully, this probably means NBC will renew football for another season. It would be terrible if the series was canceled before its time.
Per Deadline, that number also accounts for all of NBC’s brands and partners, including NBC, Telemundo, Peacock, NBC Sports Digital, NFL Digital platforms, and Yahoo Sports. This is particularly impressive for Peacock, the fledgling streaming service that prompts questions like “What’s Peacock?” “Do we have Peacock?” and “Do we have a Peacock password?” Viewership on the buggy-as-all-hell app was up 16%, which means people were able to put their frustration with “the streaming wars” on hold for a moment, eat some nachos, and watch football for a change.
Super Bowl LVI was the most-watched game since 2015, which aired in a pre-Peacock (or Preacock, as we see around these parts) world when people knew where to watch football. They didn’t need an app or nothing. We used to be a proper country, and now we’re the United States of Apps. That might work for T.G.I Fridays but not the good ol’ U.S. of A.
What’s more, the Super Bowl Halftime Show, which saw millennials around the country reflecting on their old Honda’s six-CD changers, was up 7% from last year, averaging more than 103 million viewers. Apparently, people were more into Dr. Dre, Eminem, Mary J Blige, Snoop Dogg, and Kendrick Lamar than The Weeknd getting lost in a hall of mirrors.
We loved the halftime show at The A.V. Club. Reviewer Nina Hernandez wrote:
Though The Weeknd (2021) and Shakira and Jennifer Lopez (2020) did admirable work during the turbulent pandemic-era performances, this year was a clear return to form in terms of production possibilities for the Super Bowl production. Even more, it really did turn out to be—as Dr. Dre said in the lead-up—both a surprisingly effective tribute to hip-hop’s place in sports and pop culture, and a touching love letter to the City of Angels. Only Hollywood could write such a story: a star-studded performance going off without a hitch and then the home team walking away with the trophy.
The Weeknd probably would’ve eked out a couple more viewers had Daniel Craig introduced the show. C’est la vie.
10 Comments
I look back fondly at the 4-day period just before the pandemic that had the Good Place finale, the last half-season of Bojack, and the Chiefs come from behind in the last 3 minutes to win their first Super Bowl in 50 years.
One of my new pet peeves is turning a bunch of Gen x artists living in a Gen X culture and singing primarily to a Gen X audience into something that was about Millennials. Back off Millenials… let us have this. We’ll gladly step aside for when Fall Out Boy and Nelly does the halftime show
1. ouch, Nelly and Fallout Boy..
2. what are you actually referring to about turning into a thing for millennials (I skip watching halftime shows)
I don’t think you understand how these generation labels work. Anybody younger than me is a Millennial and sucks. Anybody older than me is a Boomer and sucks. Only people my age don’t suck, except for the ones that do (which is most of them).
Exactly
I’m ageless! What category do I fall into?
Oh, the Super Bowl was on this weekend?
The what?
Actually, I think it might be the Superb Owl.
112 million seems to be an awfully low number for a sports event this big