Fox drew an audience of 111.3 million viewers for the first Super Bowl to go into overtime, a smaller audience than the game has had in the last two years but still ranking among the biggest for a television program in the United States.
The top Super Bowl audience — and the biggest for any American TV show — was the 114.4 million viewers who saw the New England Patriots beat the Seattle Seahawks in 2015, according to the Nielsen company.
Viewership for the Patriots’ come-from-behind 34-28 win over the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday had a relatively modest start, perhaps because the Falcons don’t have much of a national profile. The game also looked like a rout in the third quarter, and some 4 million viewers slipped away around the time the Falcons took at 28-3 lead, Nielsen said.
Last year’s Denver-Carolina game reached an audience of 111.9 million.