The 2021 Super Bowl ratings are finally out – and they’re not great.
CBS announced Tuesday morning that 96.4 million viewers have watched the game across all their platforms, “including the CBS Television Network, CBS Sports and NFL digital properties, Buccaneers and Chiefs mobile properties, Verizon Media mobile properties, and ESPN Deportes Television and Digital Properties. “
Tom Brady and the Buccaneers took a 31-9 victory over the Chiefs on Sunday, with the final result unquestioned for most of the second half.
CBS called the game the most live-streamed game ever, with 5.7 million viewers on digital platforms.
While CBS has not announced the number of viewers who watched the game on CBS, Sports Business Journal reported the total number was 91.629 million.
Concern in the sports media industry grew when ratings for the game weren’t released on Monday, which is highly unusual.
“Super Bowl numbers are still being processed and verified,” Nielsen said in a statement Monday night. “We expect final ratings, including Out Of Home (OOH) viewing, to be available to the media (Tuesday).”
Last season’s Super Bowl, a victory for the Chiefs over the 49ers on Fox, averaged 102.1 million viewers across all platforms.
Fans in the Boston market were just as interested in watching Brady in the Super Bowl as ever. The Boston rating was 57.6, according to Sports Business Journal, which is the second best Super Bowl rating the market has produced. The only Super Bowl Tom Brady appeared in to beat that mark was Super Bowl XLIX in 2015, when the Patriots beat the Seahawks for Brady’s fifth ring. The Boston rating for that game was 61.
Boston’s Super Bowl 2021 rating was higher than the Tampa market (52.3).
In Kansas City, where Chiefs fans were hoping for a second championship in a row, the rating was 59.9 with a peak of 63.1, according to Sports Business Journal. Kansas City, Boston, and Tampa were the three largest markets.
Amid very different circumstances due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the New York rating saw a small increase from 45.2 last year to 45.7.