Super Bowl makes History as the most watched event in history of mankind
If there was ever any debate regarding the most popular sport in the United States, after Sunday’s Super Bowl, that debate has been definitively settled. A hundred and eleven million viewers tuned in to watch the Green Bay Packers defeat the Pittsburgh Steelers
at the Cowboys Stadium making it the most watched even in the history of mankind.
The previous record was also held by the NFL. More than a hundred and six million people watched the New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl VLIV at the Sun Life Stadium in Miami. That year the NFL broke the viewership record that had
been standing since 1983 and belonged to the season finale of popular television show, M*A*S*H.
The Super Bowl XLV was a game worthy of being remembered in history. A one sided Super Bowl is always a disappointment. While the Packers were considered favourites to win the game by a slight margin, the Steelers were more than capable of upsetting Vegas
bookmakers and taking the Title. They got off to a poor start against the Packers. Packers quarterback, Aaron Rodgers scored an early touchdown and Steelers quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger threw two interceptions which resulted in touchdowns for the Packers.
But then things started to pick up for the Steelers. They fought back from 14 nothing to bring the scores up to 21-10. Before the fourth quarter the Steelers had narrowed the gap down to just 4 points.
Millions of Steelers and Packers fans watched from the edges of their seats when Rashard Mendenhall fumbled the ball. The terrible towels stopped waiving as the ball slipped through Mendenhall’s hands while at the same time the cheeseheads erupted in celebrations.
The game was closely fought all the way to the end and kept the fans hooked, though it wasn’t just the fans who were watching the game. The Steelers have one of the largest fan bases in the NFL. The Packers fans are without a doubt the most loyal fans but
their fans combined still wouldn’t total anywhere near 111 million viewers. The total population of cities of Pittsburgh and Green Bay combined is around 400,000. The total population of the two metropolitan areas is less than 3 million, even the population
of the two states is around just 18 million.
Every football fan tuned in on Sunday to watch the game. Not only because it was the Super Bowl, but because it was being fought between two of the most storied franchises in the NFL. The Steelers were gunning for their third Super Bowl title in 6 years.
The Packers hadn’t won the title in over a decade but the Super Bowl trophy is named after the Legendary Packers coach, Vince Lombardi.
The two teams were closely matched. They were both defensively stronger teams which guaranteed a lot of turnovers and excitement. The fans knew that it would be a physically intense game and they were not disappointed.
Also the fact that there wasn’t much else to do on Sunday helped ratings. Every single state, except Florida, has seen some amount of snow in the past week. The intensity of snow practically shut down many majors cities like Chicago and New York along the
east coast. 42% of all households with a TV in New York were watching the game. Such a high percentage of viewers in New York haven’t watched a Super Bowl that didn’t feature the New York Giants in almost 3 decades. The cold meant that more people stayed at
home and watched the Super Bowl.
This year’s Super Bowl also broke viewership records in Canada. Almost 50% of all Canadians (17.3 million people) watched Sunday’s game beating viewership record which had been standing since 2010’s Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The audience for the Super
Bowl grew by more than 5% since last year. The game was aired on FOX in the United States and on CTV and RDS in Canada.