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Super Bowl LVII was the most-watched US telecast of all time, according to revised data announced Tuesday by ratings agency The Nielsen.
The Kansas City Chiefs’ 38-35 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles on February 12 drew an average of 115.1 million viewers across all platforms, nearly 2 million more than Nielsen’s previous ad.
Updated numbers show that this year’s Super Bowl surpassed the previous record set in 2015, when 114.4 million people watched the Patriots beat the Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX. The highest rated telecast was Super Bowl LI in 2017 between the Patriots and Falcons, which was viewed by approximately 113.7 million.
Nielsen didn’t start calculating out-of-home broadcast estimates until 2021, so it’s unclear whether Super Bowl telecasts in 2015 or 2017 exceeded 115.1 million viewers.
Nielsen had previously announced in February that the Kansas City comeback victory averaged 113 million viewers.
Fox Sports said in a statement that the change in ratings data was “the result of a comprehensive review by Nielsen that revealed irregularities in the coding that enables Nielsen’s measurement of TV viewing as well as in its measurement of outdoor viewing.”
The Nielsen persona includes people who watched the game on the Fox or Fox Deportes TV networks, or streamed the game on Fox digital properties or the NFL+.
The NFL initially identified a possible data breach, which notified the agency that the league-owned NFL Network could take credit for viewers who were already watching the game on one of the Fox platforms, a representative for Nielsen told the Los Angeles Times.
“We appreciate the support and collaboration from our partners at Fox and the NFL to correct previously unknown errors to provide a more accurate measure of the game’s audience for this year,” the representative said in a statement published by the Times.
Information from Reuters is used in this report.