With all the right ingredients in place, it looked like the Super Bowl game between the New York Giants and New England Patriots had a real chance to become the most-watched game in history. The only question in the back of everyone's minds was whether the Giants could keep the game close enough to keep people glued to their seats.
They of course did all that and more, as the Giants not only stuck around, but they stuck it to ... the Patriots, with a 17-14 win, scoring with 35 seconds left in the game to seal the victory.
According to Nielsen Media Research, the game drew an average crowd of 97.5 million viewers, breaking the former record of 94.08 million that tuned in to watch the Dallas Cowboys defeat the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1996.
It was also the 2nd most-watched show in television history, with only the finale of "M-A-S-H" in 1983 drawing more people at 106 million.
The New York market had 67 percent of TVs turned on to the game, while Boston had an extraordinary 81 percent tuned in.
Even with the big numbers, it wasn't enough to top the ratings overall, as the 43.3 rating/65 share wasn't close to the 49.1 rating/73 share garnered by San Francisco when it played Cincinnati in 1982. Much of that is because of the growing number of households with TVs, as well as overall increase in the U.S. population.
For the Giants possible victory, the city had privately planned a parade for Tuesday, but kept it quiet so they wouldn't "jinx" the team.
» Rupert Murdoch Says Super Bowl Biggest Revenue Day in News Corp.'s History from BizofShowBiz
According to Rupert Murdoch, the Super Bowl on February 4, resulted in "the biggest day in our company's history.""The $250 million yesterday, that was for the television network from when we started up in the morning until we closed... [Read More]
Tracked on: February 4, 2008 8:47 PM | Permalink to Trackback