The watchability of an event like the Super Bowl is always going to be subjective. But this year, statistics indicate it wasn’t particularly watchable, as it scored the lowest Nielsen ratings since 2008.
Only 98.2 million people watched the Big Game between the Los Angeles Rams and the New England Patriots this year. That number still sounds absurdly high, and relative to other TV programs, it is. But last year, over 103 million people watched, and even more viewers tuned in for the previous two editions.
These numbers unfortunately don’t tell us why this is the case. Perhaps it has to do with Patriots fatigue, or maybe fewer people were inclined to turn it on partway through once they realized how low-scoring the game was (the final score was 13-3, with New England taking the Lombardi Trophy).
Either way, it’s still a lot of viewers. The long-term future of the sport is obviously unknown, but for the time being, it’s hard to imagine the NFL being overly concerned.