Super Bowl LVII between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles has all the potential ingredients for being a classic. The Chiefs are making their third Super Bowl appearance in four years while the Eagles are looking for their second championship in the last six years. Both teams have star players with passionate fanbases and with the game basically a pick ’em, Fox Sports is already publicly touting the possibility of breaking the all-time viewership record of 114.4 million viewers in Super Bowl XLIX between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks in 2015.
Linear viewership has declined since that game, falling below 100 million twice for the first time since 2009 for Super Bowl LIII (Patriots-Rams) and Super Bowl LV (Bucs-Chiefs). However, the advent of counting out-of-home viewership and the transition to the streaming era makes the real viewership totals a much different ballgame than it was even less than a decade ago. Last year’s Super Bowl reached 112.3 million people across a number of different platforms. Will this year’s Super Bowl surpass some of those all-time figures and continue a year of great NFL ratings? Our Awful Announcing staff has their say…
Michael Grant: 117 million viewers. This looks like it could be a high-scoring affair with two compelling teams. Patrick Mahomes is the most exciting player in the game, and while Jalen Hurts is new to this stage, he has a built-in following from his college days. I would not underestimate the fact that two Black QBs are meeting in America’s biggest sporting event for the first time. Think this will pull a huge number.
Joe Lucia: 111.5 million viewers. I think there will be some fatigue from the Chiefs appearing in their third Super Bowl in four seasons, but it’ll be a tight enough game with both teams scoring bunches of points to keep viewers around.
Sean Keeley: Fox sounds pretty confident that this year’s matchup is going to lead to the ratings record but I’m not sure I’m convinced of that. Neither of the Chiefs’ most recent Super Bowl appearances came close and while Patrick Mahomes is a superstar he doesn’t have Tom Brady’s Q-rating. Meanwhile, the Eagles don’t really have a household name either. Obviously, this game is going to draw huge numbers, but I feel like it’s going to hover around last year’s numbers rather than surpass them. I’ll say 113.8 million viewers.
Jessica Kleinschmidt: I’m feeling very confident in viewership this year. Let’s shoot for 114 million viewers. Between the power of RiRi and those who truly love the Kelce brothers storyline, I have a feeling we’re going to see everyone showing up to take the big game in.
Michael Dixon: Being polarizing is the name of the game. People want to see you win or lose. I don’t think either team is as polarizing as the Patriots or Seahawks were eight years ago when they set the viewership record. But both are more polarizing than they were when they set their previous Super Bowl viewership highs. Because of that, I’ll say 110 million viewers.
Ken Fang: The NFL’s postseason has done quite well for the networks and the Super Bowl should be no exception. Fox should see an up uptick in viewership from last year which saw an average total audience of 112.3 million on NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, and out-of-home viewership. Fox will see 115.5 million viewers both at home and out-of-home viewership which would be a record. The network, its advertisers and the NFL will be very happy with the total viewership.
Phillip Bupp: I’m going to go with 117.5 million viewers. It seems like football overall has had higher viewership over last year and I expect this year’s Super Bowl to be a competitive game, so that’ll help. I can’t say for certain it’ll break the overall viewership record, but it’s fair to say they’ll be close.
Matt Clapp: I’ll go with 113 million viewers. Not quite the record, but close. It’s an excellent matchup featuring two great and highly entertaining teams (and the best quarterback in the league), and it should be a close game (as the betting odds suggest).
Ben Koo: I’ll go with an impressively high number that falls short of setting a record with 111 million viewers. While there is a bit of talk this may hit 115 million viewers or more (which is very possible!), I think there is always a chunk of viewers who find the same team in championship games to be less of a reason to watch which we’ve seen play out a lot with the CFP Championship. Mahomes and the Chiefs are fun to watch but it’s a midsize market and playing in the Super Bowl for the third time in four years doesn’t feel like the recipe to break the viewership record.
