Jokes were made throughout the broadcast on FOX Sports and in business circles everywhere that the increasingly one-sided blowout at MetLife Stadium in New York for Sunday’s Super Bowl would leave television executives cringing when ratings came in Monday.
Apparently, the NFL’s title game is impervious even to the most obvious of viewing declines.
For the fourth straight year, the Super Bowl set a new high for most watched television event in the history of moving pictures, drawing in 111.5 million viewers.
The number barely edges last year’s mark of 111.3 million, and in addition to setting record television marks, Super Bowl 48 was also the most viewed online broadcast ever, and the 24.9 million tweets that the Super Bowl incited on the social media giant was also a new high.
The only number that went down from 2013’s game was average rating, which dipped a 47.6 share, grabbing a 48.1 last year. That’s still massive, and the broadcast garanered the fifth-highest rating ever.
Local market numbers in New York came back big, even higher than when the hometown Giants appeared in the title game in 2012.
The NFL is big, and its dominance, despite growing concerns about player safety and rule changes, appears as if it won’t be going anywhere.