By David Bauder / The Associated Press
NEW YORK—Setting television viewership records with the Super Bowl has become almost routine, but this year’s average of 111.9 million viewers for Denver’s victory over Carolina is down from the past two years.
That makes Sunday’s game the third most-watched event in US television history, the Nielsen company said on Monday. Last year’s down-to-the-wire contest between New England and Seattle keeps the record with 114.4 million viewers.
The Super Bowl had seemed to know no ceiling in popularity, setting viewership records in six of seven years until this one.
CBS, the nation’s most-watched network, had pushed the event hard the past few months, playing up the historical nature of the 50th Super Bowl game. But Denver’s 24-10 victory wasn’t a sizzler, with defenses dominating the marquee quarterback matchup between Peyton Manning and reigning National Football League Most Valuable Player (MVP) Cam Newton.
Even more than television, social media reflected far less engagement in the game than there was last year, when the result was decided on a last-minute, goal-line interception.
Twitter said that there were 16.9 million tweets about the game, sharply down from last year’s 25.1 million. Facebook reported that there were 200 million posts, comments or “Likes,” down from 265 million last year. This year 60 million people took to Facebook to converse about the game, while last year it was 65 million.
For both Twitter and Facebook, the moment of highest social-media activity occurred in the minute after the halftime show featuring Coldplay, Beyoncé and Bruno Mars. On Facebook, the next most-commented-upon moments came at the end of the game and following Lady Gaga’s rendition of the National Anthem.
Nielsen said 21.2 million stayed up to watch the special version of Steven Colbert’s The Late Show that aired after the game. While it represented Colbert’s biggest audience ever, that was almost a given—and it was the smallest audience for a post-Super Bowl program since 17.4 million people watched Alias on ABC in 2003.
Colbert may have been hurt by the relatively late start, 10:54 p.m. on the East Coast, following postgame interviews and trophy presentations.
Nielsen said an average of 1.4 million computer users watched the live stream of the game. The stream had just under 4 million unique visitors during the game.
RECORD $132.5-M BET
NEVADA sportsbooks are smiling a day after they took in a record $132.5 million in wagers on the Super Bowl.
“It was a very good day,” Johnny Avello, executive director of the sportsbook at Wynn Las Vegas, said on Monday.
“A defensive battle was something we were rooting for and fortunately, that’s exactly what it was,” added Jay Kornegay, the odds maker at the Westgate Las Vegas Superbook.
A 5.5-point underdog at the casinos, Denver upset Carolina, 24-10—a total well below the over-under projection of between 44 and 45. Carolina quarterback Cam Newton was the overwhelming favorite to win this year’s MVP, but he failed to score and watched Denver linebacker Von Miller take the honor at 12-1 odds.
Odds makers said gamblers bet heavily on the Panthers in the weeks ahead of the game.
“But over the last few days, the pendulum swung in Denver’s favor and really balanced a lot of things out,” Kornegay said. “Our best-case scenario was for the Panthers to win the game, but not cover. So it wasn’t a best case, but as long as we stayed under the total, we were in good shape.”
The Nevada Gaming Control Board said in its preliminary estimate on Monday that Nevada’s 194 sportsbooks kept about 10.1 percent of the $132.5 million in Super Bowl wagers, for a total win of $13.3 million.
The previous record of $119.4 million was set two years ago when Seattle beat Denver, 43-8. The total win that year was the best recorded over the past 10 years, about 16.5 percent or $19.7 million. Wagers totaled just under $116 million last year, with a casino win of 2.8 percent.
The last time Nevada books lost money on the Super Bowl was 2008, when they paid out about $2.6 million more than they took in as the New York Giants beat New England, 17-14.
This year marked the first time Nevada sportsbooks could accept bets on the MVP.
Image credits: AP