The Super Bowl has long been America’s premier sporting event, blending high-stakes football with blockbuster entertainment and multimillion-dollar ads. But Super Bowl LX, held on February 8, 2026, where the Seattle Seahawks dominated the New England Patriots with a final score of 29-13, revealed cracks in that formula. According to data from Samba TV, a leading TV measurement firm, overall U.S. household viewership dropped significantly compared to previous years.
The game itself was described by many as lackluster, with the Seahawks building an early lead that turned the contest into a one-sided affair. This lack of competitive drama likely contributed to fluctuating viewership patterns throughout the broadcast. However, going into halftime, the game was still competitive and saw its ratings peak.
Samba TV’s minute-by-minute breakdown paints a vivid picture of audience behavior. Viewership, measured as a percentage of the broadcast’s maximum audience, started low before kickoff at around 6:30 PM ET and steadily climbed through the first quarter. It peaked near the end of the second quarter (around 7:30 PM), where anticipation for a potential comeback or halftime excitement was at its highest.
However, the real story emerges during halftime. As Bad Bunny took the stage around 8:00 PM for his highly anticipated performance, viewership plummeted to just 88% of its peak. Samba TV estimates that only 26.5 million households stuck around for the show—a staggering 39% drop from the 43.4 million who watched Kendrick Lamar’s 2025 halftime show a year prior.
The ratings experience a massive spike once the halftime show is over. In the second half, engagement continued to wane, with overall viewership trending downward through the third and fourth quarters as the game moved into garbage time. By the game’s end around 10:30 PM, many viewers had already checked out.
Samba’s narrative is that advertisers should heed this data when choosing ad placements. But the data strongly demonstrates that Bad Bunny was unappealing to American audiences, so much so that many took a break from watching at halftime.
