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By Joe Edwards and Gabe Whisnant
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Sunday night’s Super Bowl and its halftime show featuring Bad Bunny fell short of setting viewership records for the most-watched U.S. broadcast and halftime performance.
Seattle’s 29-13 victory over New England averaged 124.9 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, NBC Sports Digital and NFL+, according to Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel ratings announced Tuesday. The audience was smaller than the 127.7 million U.S. viewers who watched Philadelphia’s win over Kansas City last year on Fox.
Bad Bunny’s halftime performance averaged 128.2 million viewers from 8:15 to 8:30 p.m. Eastern, according to Nielsen. That figure ranks as the fourth most-watched Super Bowl halftime show, trailing Kendrick Lamar in 2025, Michael Jackson in 1993 and Usher in 2024. Global viewership figures for the halftime show are expected to be released early next week.
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Turning Point USA Halftime Show Viewers
Turning Point USA (TPUSA) touted millions of viewers for its alternative halftime livestream during Super Bowl LX on Sunday.
TPUSA’s All-American Halftime Show YouTube stream—featuring performances from Kid Rock as well as country musicians Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett—registered roughly 19 million views by about 6 a.m. ET on Monday, roughly 10 hours after the stream began.
TPUSA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet said the total could rise to 50 million, characterizing the event as a “shot across the bow.”
YouTube uses a census-style approach that counts intentional video plays, generally understood by creators to require at least roughly 30 seconds of watch time, though YouTube does not officially confirm that threshold. Nielsen, by contrast, relies on data from representative household samples and extrapolates those measurements to estimate total TV and streaming audiences.
For context, Kendrick Lamar’s 2025 halftime performance drew 133.5 million viewers, according to the Associated Press. Lamar’s show also made history as the most-watched Super Bowl halftime show.
The previous year, Usher drew an audience of 129.3 million, per AP.
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Kolvet also confirmed that TPUSA will host another halftime show in 2027.
Bad Bunny's Super Bowl Halftime Show: What to Know
During his set at the Super Bowl, headliner Bad Bunny used the moment to promote unity. The Puerto Rican star held up a football inscribed with “Together we are America,” as a jumbotron displayed the message, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
The show also featured surprise cameos from Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin, among others.
President Donald Trump criticized Bad Bunny’s halftime performance, calling it “one of the worst ever,” and faulting the singer for performing in Spanish, saying, “Nobody understands a word this guy is saying.” More than 50 million people in the U.S. speak Spanish as either their primary or secondary language.
Super Bowl LXI will be held on February 14, 2027 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, marking the first iteration of the event to fall on Valentine's Day.
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