Super Bowl and Bad Bunny halftime show fall short of records
Super Bowl 60 in the United States fell short of setting all-time broadcast records, Nielsen ratings show. The final figures ended a four-year streak of continuous audience growth for the NFL championship game.
Seattle beat New England 29-13 on Sunday night. The game averaged 124.9 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL+. Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel rating system measured those totals. Last year, Philadelphia drew 127.7 million viewers on Fox against Kansas City.
The broadcast became the most-watched program in NBC history. The network is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The television audience peaked at 137.8 million viewers during the second quarter from 7:45 p.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern. That peak set a record, passing the prior mark of 137.7 million.
The game marked the fifth straight year the championship averaged over 100 million viewers. It was the second game in event history without a touchdown through three quarters. Seattle led 12-0 entering the final 15 minutes.
Musician Bad Bunny performed at halftime. His set averaged 128.2 million viewers from 8:15 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Eastern. The performance ranks fourth in historical halftime viewership.
- Kendrick Lamar: 133.5 million viewers in 2025
- Michael Jackson: 133.4 million viewers in 1993
- Usher: 129.3 million viewers in 2024
- Bad Bunny: 128.2 million viewers
The Turning Point USA alternative halftime show featured Kid Rock. It peaked at 5 million viewers on YouTube. Nielsen did not measure any live YouTube streams. Charge was the only linear network carrying the show that Nielsen tracks. Full weekly numbers arrive Wednesday.
Kid Rock’s show had 21,208,583 views on the group’s YouTube page through Tuesday night. Bad Bunny had 61,311,972 views. Bad Bunny reached 4 billion social media views in 24 hours, the NFL and Ripple Analytics said. That marked a 137% increase over last year.
The NFL said international markets drove over 55% of all social media views. Full global numbers for the performance arrive next week.
Telemundo averaged 3.3 million viewers. It became the most-watched Spanish broadcast of the game in United States history. Spanish broadcasts began in 2014. Telemundo peaked at 4.8 million viewers during the musical performance.
The game in the United States led into the Winter Olympics program. NBC’s “Primetime in Milan” coverage averaged 42 million viewers. It included the women’s downhill and team figure skating events. The broadcast delivered the largest Winter Olympics audience for the network since Day 2 in Sochi in 2014.
The Milan audience rose 73% compared to the show following Super Bowl 56. That previous program averaged 24.3 million viewers. NBC Sports President Rick Cordella praised the broadcast results in a written statement.
“The Super Bowl and the NFL once again delivered a blockbuster audience across the NBC broadcast network, Peacock and Telemundo, and provided an unprecedented lead-in to our Primetime in Milan coverage,” Cordella said. “The Super Bowl and the Olympics are the two most powerful events in the world, and we salute our talented production, tech and announce teams who delivered best-in-class presentations for our viewers, stations and partners.”
NFL playoff games averaged 37 million viewers across the first three weekends. That was up 5% from last year. The regular season averaged 18.7 million viewers, a 10% increase from last season.
Television networks and sports leagues use media rating systems to assess audience size across broadcast and digital platforms. Independent analytics companies collect data from households to estimate total reach for national programming.
Full global television viewership data for the complete broadcast will be compiled and released across international markets.
