Super Bowl LIX: Eagles’ Domination Of Chiefs Ekes Past Last Year’s Nail-Biter To Set Viewership Record

Story by

Katie Campione

Tue, Feb 11, 2025 ·

3 min read

UPDATED WITH FINAL NUMBERS:The Philadelphia Eagles left Caesars Superdome victorious Sunday night, and while the Kansas City Chiefs’ hopes of winning a third consecutive Super Bowl were foiled, Fox did manage another sought after three-peat.

Super Bowl LIX attracted 127.7 million viewers across Fox, Fox Deportes, Tubi, Telemundo and NFL digital properties, according to Nielsen and first-party data. That’s just a bit of an uptick from the 126M Fox was “conservatively” projecting based on early numbers Monday.

More from Deadline

That makes it the third consecutive Super Bowl to hit a record-high audience. Not only is it the most-watched Super Bowl of all time, it now takes the crown from last year’s big game as the second most-watched TV program after the Apollo moon landing.

Super Bowl LIX was up 3.4% from last year’s previous record of 123.4M viewers and up 10.9% from 2023’s audience of 115.1M, the last time that Fox hosted the game.

Fox said Tuesday the game peaked with 137.7M viewers between 8-8:15 p.m. ET, which came during the second quarter, minutes before Kendrick Lamar took the stage for the halftime performance .

Speaking of the halftime show, Fox says that Lamar’s performance averaged 133.5M viewers, up 3% from Usher’s performance last year to be the most-watched Super Bowl Halftime Show in history.

Streaming generated 14.5M average viewers throughout the night, and Tubi alone was responsible for 13.6M.

That’s huge for the free ad-supported streaming service, which Fox acquired in 2020, considering many streaming vets wondered about its technical capacity for handling a live event of this magnitude. So far, there haven’t been reports of major technical failings on Tubi’s end, indicating the event went on largely without a hitch.

Considering the game was a near-blowout, with the Eagles dominating the Chiefs from the first snap of the ball, this is a pretty big win for Fox.

This year’s big game was a tough sell on multiple fronts , given it was yet another rematch, and the NFL had seen a decline in ratings throughout the regular season. But, interestingly enough, the Chiefs had been the league’s saving grace of sorts, playing in more of the most-watched games this season than any other team.

Last year’s Chiefs-49ers matchup was a nail-biter that went into overtime, and the last time the Chiefs faced the Eagles in the Super Bowl in 2023 (which hit a record audience at the time) was also a close game, decided in the final minutes by a field goal.

The last time the Super Bowl didn’t come down to the wire was in 2021, when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the Chiefs 31-9 on CBS. That game drew the lowest ratings since 2006 with 91.63M tuning in.

Best of Deadline