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Super Bowl ratings tested without Swiftie effect
Los Angeles Times
|February 07, 2026
NFL viewership has been up throughout season — a promising sign for the big game.
CHIEFS player Travis Kelce and pop star Taylor Swift celebrate a win over the Buffalo Bills on Jan. 26, 2025.
(CHARLIE RIEDEL Associated Press)
The adage that records are made to be broken definitely applies to the TV ratings for the Super Bowl.
For three straight years, the game deciding the champion for the NFL season has set new viewing records, including last year’s Philadelphia Eagles crushing victory over the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 that scored an average audience of 127.7 million viewers on Fox.
Both the 2024 and 2025 games had the benefit of the pop culture sizzle generated by Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce’s romance with pop superstar Taylor Swift, bringing in more casual fans.
This season, the Chiefs won't be in the game for the first time in three years as NBC will have the Seattle Seahawks facing off Sunday against the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX, not the match-up experts predicted for this year.
But that doesn’t mean it can’t set another ratings record.
“Ibelieve it can,” said Lee Berke, president of LHB Sports, Entertainment & Media, noting the lift the NFL ratings have seen this season as viewing information from set-top devices andinternet-connected televisions in 45 million households are now included in Nielsen's audience measurement.
“It’s definitely showing up and bumping up ratings throughout the year for the NFL,” Berke said.
Arecent report from the Video Advertising Bureau found that the new measurement from Nielsen has boosted ratings for prime-time NFL games in the mid-to-high single-digit percentages.
This story is from the February 07, 2026 edition of Los Angeles Times.
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