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Super Bowl LVII becomes most-watched American telecast ever

We all knew that this year’s Super Bowl was fantastic, with the Chiefs coming from behind to thwart the Eagles, 38-35. And now we know a historic number of viewers thought so as well.

It’s been more than two months since the game unfolded outside Phoenix. On Tuesday, Nielsen revealed that the first estimate of how many folks watched the game was too low by nearly 2 million. If you add the missing audience numbers, more fans watched this Super Bowl than any other broadcast in U.S. TV history.

The official number of viewers now stands at 115.1 million. That edges the 2015 game, with an audience of 114.4 million.

Biggest Super Bowl TV Audiences in History

1. Super Bowl LVII 115.1 million 2023

2. Super Bowl XLIX 114.4 million 2015

3. Super Bowl LVI 112.3 million 2022

4. Super Bowl XLVIII 112.2 2014

5 Super Bowl L 111.9 million 2016

Kansas City coach Andy Reid, center, celebrates the Chiefs Super Bowl win. (Cooper Neill/Getty Images)

So where’d they’d find the extra 2 million viewers? According to Fox Sports, which telecast the game, Nielsen was responsible for the numbers change.

Fox Sports said that Nielsen’s review “revealed irregularities in the encoding that enables Nielsen’s measurement of TV viewing as well as in the measurement of out-of-home viewing.” The TV numbers include those who watched the game on Fox or Fox Deportes. And the total audience included viewers from Fox’s streamers and NFL+.

“There were two separate issues, each of them accounting for an additional 1 million viewers,” said Mike Mulvihill, executive vice president and head of strategy and analytics for Fox Sports.

The NFL contacted Nielsen and asked the company to review the numbers, especially those watching via NFL Network. The league believed the network was getting credit for fans who actually watched the big game on Fox. That’s when Nielsen discovered a problem with how the programming was encoded. Nielsen found a second issue with how viewers were counted who were watching outside their home. This included those who watched the games from a restaurant or bar, or while staying at a hotel.

A Nielsen rep told the LA Times: “We appreciate the support and collaboration from our partners at Fox and the NFL to correct previously unknown errors to ultimately provide a more accurate measure for this year’s total audience for the game,” the representative said in a statement published by the Times.

The new viewership numbers can be used for bragging rights, but that’s about it. Variety reported that bigger numbers don’t necessarily mean more money for Fox. Super Bowl ads already are sold for a high price, but without audience guarantees. Fox made about $600 million from broadcasting the Super Bowl.