Super Bowl 2024: What were the most-watched Super Bowls?

This year’s Super Bowl matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers is generating lots of buzz. It is a rematch from 2020, a matchup between two franchises with both historical success and recent success. And, of course, Taylor Swift may be in attendance.

According to sportsmediawatch.com, the Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl matchup in 2020 is the third-most-watched Super Bowl in NFL history behind only the New England Patriots-Atlanta Falcons Super Bowl of 2017 and the Patriots-Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowls of 2018.

The first 49ers-Chiefs Super Bowl generated 118.5 million total viewers across all platforms; Patriots-Falcons generated 126.3 million viewers; and Patriots-Eagles generated 119.9 million viewers.

With this year’s Super Bowl being a rematch, it will be interesting to see how viewership compares to both its predecessor and recent seasons.

Last year’s matchup between the Chiefs and Eagles generated 115.1 million total viewers, so a logical guess would be somewhere within the 115 to 120 million viewership range.

However, the matchup between the Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2021 mustered only 101.6 million total viewers, the lowest since 2009, which was the most recent year that viewership was less than 100 million.

That game was a 31-9 blowout (31-9), which hurt the final viewership numbers. The top three games all were hard-fought games involving high scores and big comeback attempts.

With another hard-fought, high-scoring game, this year’s Super Bowl could break the viewership record, or at least work its way into the top three.

Super Bowl 2024 will air on CBS at 6:30 p.m. ET, and can be streamed live on fuboTV (free trial). Fans can buy Super Bowl LVIII gear, including jerseys and hats, from Fanatics. Find the cheapest Super Bowl 2024 tickets on StubHub.