Adedokun Waliyu 
The Seattle Seahawks’ 29-13 Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots — along with Bad Bunny’s highly anticipated halftime performance — fell short of breaking US television ratings records, according to figures released Tuesday.
The game averaged 124.9 million viewers across NBC, streaming platform Peacock, Spanish-language Telemundo, NBC Sports Digital and NFL+, based on same-day data from Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel ratings system.
That makes it the second-most watched program in US history, behind last year’s Super Bowl in which 127.7 million viewers watched the Philadelphia Eagles defeat the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 on Fox.
During the second quarter, viewership peaked at 137.8 million — the highest peak audience ever recorded in US television history.
Telemundo averaged 3.3 million viewers, making it the most-watched Super Bowl ever on US Spanish-language television. The network’s audience peaked during the halftime show, drawing an average of 4.8 million viewers — also a Spanish-language record for a Super Bowl halftime performance.
Overall, Bad Bunny’s halftime show averaged 128.2 million viewers. The Puerto Rican star became the first halftime headliner to perform entirely in Spanish.
Despite the strong numbers, the performance did not surpass the record set in 2025, when Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show drew 133.5 million viewers, breaking the long-standing 1993 record of 133.4 million set by Michael Jackson.
Analysts suggested that a lackluster first half of the game may have contributed to slightly lower overall ratings.
This year’s Super Bowl was also the first to be measured using Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel method, a hybrid system combining traditional panel household data with information from smart devices such as smart TVs. Previous Super Bowls were measured using Nielsen’s panel-only system.
