The Seattle Seahawks’ dominant performance in Super Bowl XLVIII, defeating the Denver Broncos 43-8, was watched by an average audience of 111.5 million people, more than any television program in U.S. history, the NFL announced Monday.
The game surpassed the previous mark of 111.3 million set by a much more closely contested Super Bowl XLVI (New York Giants-New England Patriots) on NBC.
The game is also now the most-watched program ever on FOX, breaking the 111.0 million viewer mark the network set for Super Bowl XLV (Green Bay Packers-Pittsburgh Steelers). Three of the last four Super Bowls set average viewership records.
The final ratings are contrary to early returns which reportedly saw the game ranking fifth all-time.
Super Bowl XLVIII posted a 46.4/69, matching the household rating and share for Super Bowl XLVII (Baltimore-San Francisco) a year ago, according to fast national figures issued Monday by Nielsen, and both, along with Super Bowl XVIII and XIX tie, as the seventh highest-rated Super Bowls ever.
Interest in the game, the first Super Bowl ever played in an outdoor, cold-weather location, and the nation’s No. 1 media market, was unprecedented. The rating at kickoff, 44.5/70, ranks as the highest on record, and 12 percent over the kickoff rating a year ago, suggesting that a more competitive game would have resulted in even higher viewership.
The blowout was the largest margin of victory in a Super Bowl in 21 years,
Ratings climbed through the first half and peaked at a 47.9/71 from 7:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET as Seattle established a commanding 22-0 halftime lead. Viewership remained high through the fourth quarter despite the fact that Seattle had the game well in hand.
The game earned a 44.0/63 from 9:30 p.m. to conclusion, meaning that even in the closing minutes the rating was only 5 percent lower than it was for the entire game.