Super Bowl LI Ratings: Fox’s Viewership Hits Four-Year Low, But Audience Across All Platforms Up Over 2016

Although the 111.3 million average audience for Fox’s Super Bowl LI telecast was the smallest for a Super Bowl in four years, the average of 113.7 million viewers across Fox, Fox Sports GO and NFL Digital, and Fox Deportes is tied for the second–most-watched Super Bowl of all time across all platforms (vs. 115.8 million in 2015). Fox’s audience for the Patriots’ overtime victory over the Falcons ranks No. 5 on the list of most-viewed TV programs  (just behind Super Bowl XLVI in 2012 when the Giants beat the Patriots) but is lower than last year’s 111.9 million (in which the Broncos beat the Panthers).

SUPER BOWL LI ON FOX
Counting television and streaming, 172 million more people watched last night’s Super Bowl on Fox than watched any other program in U.S. television history. With 111.3 million average viewers on the Fox broadcast network, Super Bowl LI is the fifth–most-watched program in television history and Fox’s second-most-watched event ever, behind Super Bowl XLVIII in 2014 (vs. 112.2 million).

Sunday’s game, in which New England overcame the largest deficit in Super Bowl history, saw the largest in-game audience growth on record. The average audience swelled 29% from kickoff through overtime in the 10:00-10:15 p.m. ET window.

Super Bowl LI powered Fox network to an easy win across all networks in primetime Sunday night, and the 45.3/70 household rating/share ranks as the highest-rated telecast of the broadcast season.

FOX DEPORTES
More than 650,000 total viewers tuned in to watch the game in Spanish on Fox Deportes, setting a record for the most-watched non-soccer event ever on Spanish-language cable television. Fox Deportes eclipsed its own record of 561,000, set in 2014 during the first-ever Super Bowl telecast in Spanish in the U.S., by nearly 90,000. Viewership peaked at 911,000 in the  9:45-10:00 p.m. period.

DIGITAL
Super Bowl LI is the most live-streamed Super Bowl ever, delivering an average-minute audience of 1.72 million, up 23% over last year (1.4 million) and up 224% over Fox’s previous Super Bowl stream (530,523), in 2014. The live stream of Super Bowl LI was carried FoxSportsGO.com and on the Fox Sports GO app on tablets and on connected devices — Xbox One, Apple TV, Roku, Android TV, Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV — as well as on NFL Mobile and go90 for Verizon customers and the NFL app on Xbox One and Windows 10.

Super Bowl LI is the single most-talked-about television program ever, according to Nielsen Social Content Ratings, with 48 million social-media authors across Facebook and Twitter generating 191 million interactions. Super Bowl LI is the first Super Bowl in which Facebook has been included in the Nielsen Social Content Ratings.

Social-media interactions peaked during the 10:30-10:45 p.m. window, Patriots running back James White’s game-winning touchdown serving as the most-tweeted minute (177,865 at 10:27 p.m.).

HALFTIME
Lady Gaga’s halftime performance drew 117.5 million viewers during the 8:15-8:30 p.m. window and ranks as the second-most-watched halftime show in Super Bowl history, behind Katy Perry’s performance at Super Bowl XLIX (120.7 million).

PREGAME
The Fox Super Bowl Sunday pregame show averaged a 10.1/20 household rating/share (20.719 million viewers) for its nearly five hours of programming from 2:00 to 6:38 p.m.

President Donald Trump’s interview with Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly, which aired in the pregame show during the 4:00-4:15 p.m. window, drew a 6.8/15 household rating/share and 12.2 million viewers.

Fox Sports’ live Super Bowl LI coverage began with Skip & Shannon: Undisputed Super Bowl Special, which attracted 2.4 million viewers in the 12:00-1:00 p.m. window and is the most-watched sports-debate show in U.S. television history.

Fox Super Bowl Kickoff pulled in 4.1 million viewers in the 1:00-2:00 p.m. hour, the second-most-watched edition of Fox NFL Kickoff ever.