The Taylor Swift effect! Super Bowl 2024 was the most watched Super Bowl of ALL time with 123.4m viewers – and the second most watched TV program in history after Apollo 11 moon landing

The Super Bowl had an average of 123.4million viewers on Sunday night, the most watched telecast in history and the second-most watched US broadcast event behind the Apollo 11 moon landing.

The previous record belonged to last year’s Super Bowl, which drew 115.1million average viewers. CBS Sports announced the astonishing figures less than 24 hours after the Kansas City Chiefs lifted the Lombardi Trophy.

The Chiefs, flanked by support from Taylor Swift for her tight-end boyfriend Travis Kelce, defeated the San Francisco 49ers 25-22 in a gripping overtime win to merge victorious in the Super Bowl in Las Vegas.

Only the Apollo 11 Moon landing was watched by more people in history, with an estimated average of between 125-150million viewing the 1969 event live between multiple networks.

On CBS itself, 120million people watched the game, the largest audience in history for a single network. Incredibly, more than 200million viewers watched at least part of the Super Bowl across all networks and streams that were broadcasting the game

Swift was shown on CBS’ broadcast of the Super Bowl for 54 seconds on Sunday night, equal to than less than one percent of the entire time the game was on.

The rest of the top-10 most-watched events of all-time are all Super Bowls, dating back to 2011 – demonstrating that while Swift will likely have impacted viewership numbers, games are still extremely popular without the pop star.

The Super Bowl was up seven percent in viewership from last year. Final Nielsen data will be available on Tuesday morning.

The game’s total audience was up 10 percent from last year. Univision averaged more than 2.2million viewers, the highest for a Super Bowl for a Spanish-language network.

Paramount+, CBS’ streaming service, also had a record-setting audience for the Super Bowl.

NFL regular-season games averaged 17.9 million viewers in 2023, tied for the second highest since averages were first tracked in 1995.

Millions of Swift’s fans have tuned into several Chiefs games throughout the season, helping the NFL set ratings records throughout its season.

The ‘Anti-Hero’ singer’s likely in-person attendance at the Super Bowl likely made millions of her fans tune in to see her cheering on Kelce.

Although the Super Bowl set plenty of US broadcast records, its viewership is dwarfed by other televised events worldwide.

The most-watched global event was the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, which had four billion viewers worldwide in September 2022.

Nine events have garnered at least a billion viewers, including three sporting events. The opening ceremonies of the 1996 Sumer Olympics is the No 2 watched event in history with 3.5 billion viewers.

The rematch between Muhammad Ali and Leon Spinks in 1978, Ali’s last win of his professional career, drew two billions viewers worldwide. The 2022 FIFA World Cup Final garnered 1.5 billion viewers.

This year’s Super Bowl is the No 16 most-watched event in worldwide history.

The game saw Kelce win his third Super Bowl with Swift cheering him on in the stands after racing back to Vegas from Japan, where she had played four straight shows on her Eras Tour in Tokyo.

The Chiefs trailed 10-3 at halftime, with Kelce only catching one pass for one yard after the game’s first two quarters.

He even came to blows with his head coach Andy Reid, shoving him and screaming in his face as the Chiefs offense stuttered in the second quarter,

But in the second half, Kelce showed his dominance to finish the game with nine catches for 93 yards.

The Chiefs repeated as Super Bowl champions, as they defeated the Eagles in last year’s championship game, the previous record-holder for the largest audience from a single telecast – where Kelce went up against his older brother Jason to claim glory.

Speaking after the game, Kelce said: ‘I’m going to go ahead and enjoy this and everything that just happened.

‘This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I´ve been able to go through three times now. It gets sweeter and sweeter every time.

‘You know the goal has always been to get three. But we couldn´t get here without getting that two, and having that target on our back all year.’