CBS Sports’ Super Bowl LVIII broadcast is most-watched telecast in history: 123.4 million tune in

Super Bowl LVIII, which aired live Sunday on CBS, is officially the most-watched program in television history. The broadcast, which featured the Kansas City Chiefs defeating the San Francisco 49ers, 25-22 in overtime, drew in 123.4 million average viewers across all platforms, including CBS Television Network, Paramount+, Nickelodeon, Univision, and CBS Sports, Univision and NFL digital properties, including NFL+.

The 123.4 million viewers topped last year’s Super Bowl (115.1 million), which held the previous record. Overall, 202.4 million viewers watched at least part of the broadcast, making it the highest unduplicated total audience in history, marking a 10% increase from last year’s Super Bowl (184 million).

The CBS broadcast led the way with 120.0 million viewers, the largest audience in history for a single network. Super Bowl LVIII was also the most-streamed Super Bowl in history thanks to a record-setting audience on Paramount+.

Final Nielsen data will be available Tuesday.

The game itself — just the second Super Bowl ever to go into overtime — produced plenty of storylines. Patrick Mahomes won his third career Super Bowl MVP, joining Tom Brady and Joe Montana in an exclusive club of three-time winners. Pop superstar Taylor Swift, who is dating Chiefs star tight end Travis Kelce, attended the game and was featured throughout the broadcast. Usher starred as the halftime performer alongside several guests like Alicia Keys and Ludacris. Plus, the second half and overtime was one of the most exciting stretches in the game’s history.

The Super Bowl LVIII broadcast capped off a record-setting NFL season for CBS Sports. “NFL ON CBS” scored the most-watched regular season since the league returned to the network in 1998, and CBS had its best NFL postseason viewership since 1998.