As per iSpot, the game drew an average minute audience of 121 million viewers, including at home and in public venues.
Something curious happened with Nielsen’s first round of Super Bowl ratings. Numbers in both Cincinnati and Los Angeles were down from last year. This, as Sports Business Journal noted, was “ impossible to believe ” given that the game was being played between teams representing both cities, neither of whom were involved in last year’s match up. And so a hasty delay and retreat with revised numbers (that don’t yet seem to include streaming) released today. This kerfuffle (to put it gently) is as good a proof point as any as to why NBCU decided to turn to alternative measurement solutions that rely on ACR data from smart TVs rather than panels to provide their stats. iSpot.
