The lowest scoring Super Bowl in history tied a 16-year ratings low.
Sunday’s Patriots-Rams Super Bowl 53 earned a 41.1 rating and 98.2 million viewers on CBS, down 5% in ratings and viewership from Eagles-Patriots on NBC last year (43.1, 103.4M) and down 9% and 12% respectively from Patriots-Falcons on FOX in 2017 (45.3, 11.3M).
New England’s lackluster win tied the lowest Super Bowl rating since 2003 (Buccaneers-Raiders: 40.7), matching the Patriots’ 2005 win over Philadelphia. It snapped a streak of 12 straight years in which the Super Bowl topped a 42.0 rating.
Overall, Sunday’s game tied the fifth-lowest Super Bowl rating since 1992.
The TV audience was the smallest for the Super Bowl since 2008 (Giants-Patriots: 97.4M), and snapped a streak of nine straight years in which the primary broadcast exceeded 100 million viewers. It still ranks as the 11th-largest audience in Super Bowl history, and the 12th-largest audience in U.S. TV history.
Super Bowl ratings and viewership have now declined in four straight years, the longest streak of declines in Super Bowl history. The game has shed 16 million viewers from its all-time high of 114.4 million, set just four years ago by Patriots-Seahawks.
The game had a streaming audience of 2.6 million on CBS and NFL digital platforms, up 31% from last year (2.0M), up 53% from 2017 (1.7M), and a new record. Spanish-language coverage on ESPN Deportes had 473,000, per Sports Business Daily‘s John Ourand, down 13% to a three-year low.
Across all platforms, the game scored 100.7 million viewers — still down 5% from last year (106M). The combined audience is the smallest for the Super Bowl since 2009 (98.7M).
The Super Bowl continued a run of declines for championship sporting events. In addition to Sunday’s game, ratings and viewership have declined for the most recent NBA Finals, World Series, NCAA Final Four and College Football Playoff. One exception to the trend was last year’s Stanley Cup Final.
The NFL playoffs had been bucking the downward trend. Patriots-Rams was just the third of 11 playoff games this year to post a decline.
A complete list of all Super Bowl ratings is available here. The complete list of all 2018-19 NFL ratings is available here. Local ratings for Sunday’s game were previously reported here.
[Numbers from Sports Business Daily‘s John Ourand/Twitter 2.4]
