Super Bowl Falls Short of Record Ratings

Super Bowl LI might have been historic in terms of its on-field excitement, but it wasn't the most-watched Super Bowl ever. In fact, it wasn't even the most-watched Super Bowl of the last two years.

The final ratings numbers show that just over 111.3 million people watched the game. That's a huge number of people, of course, but it's short of the 111.9 million who watched last year, and it's well short of the record 114.4 million who watched the game in 2015. Perhaps if viewers had known that the New England Patriots would pull off a stunning come-from-behind victory in overtime this year, the game's ratings would have fared better.

Viewers also seemed to have exhausted themselves with the game itself and gone to bed as soon as it was over. The debut of 24 Legacy, which sat in the coveted post-game spot, drew the smallest audience for any post-Super Bowl program in the last 14 years. Of the 111 million who watched the game, only 17.6 million stuck around for 24 Legacy, no doubt because the game's overtime pushed the series' start time to 11pm.