Super Bowl LX second-most-watched despite "dud" comments, prompting defence discussion and recalling the '85 Bears
Published about 20 hours ago • 5 min read
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Super Bowl LX drew big numbers despite prominent 'dud' conversation around defence, recalling the '85 Bears' viewership success
A defence-dominated team became national superstars before...
In the wake of the Seattle Seahawks' 29-13 victory over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX Sunday, there was a lot of prominent discussion in sports media about this as a "dud" or a "snoozer" of a game. While what's interesting to an individual person in sports often varies, this game wasn't particularly high-scoring, and the Patriots didn't even score until the fourth quarter (they trailed 12-0 heading into that frame, and only got on the board after Seattle made it 19-0). But despite that, Nielsen and NBC announced Tuesday evening that the game averaged 124.9 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, NBC Sports Digital and NFL+, the second-highest total in history (behind only the 127.7 million viewers for Super Bowl LIX last year).
Of course, some of that is about measurement changes, which we'll discuss in more detail before the end of this post. And there are other factors involved as well: this game was carried on prominent Spanish-language and digital platforms, it came with a high-profile and hotly-debated halftime show from Bad Bunny, and even the teams' fanbases and the rematch element might have helped a bit over an "average" Super Bowl. There's also the context of the NFL's dominant ratings this season and the wide interest in that league as a whole, and the context of the ratings success big sports events have been finding overall. But maybe the first place to start is if this game was even a "dud," or if an excellent defensive performance can sometimes be just as enticing as offensive dominance.
Most sports involve some level of clash between offence (I'm Canadian and this is my newsletter, so I'll spell it that way) and defence. We're regularly told by leagues, networks, and pundits that offence is more entertaining, to the degree of leagues publicizing increased scoring in year-in-review press releases (and often making rule changes to facilitate that increased scoring). But there are also plenty of counterexamples where dominant defence draws attention, from MLB pitchers' duels over the years to the 1990s NBA that many cite as "glory years" to the '85 "Monsters of the Midway" Bears, who were even more famous for their defence than their "Super Bowl Shuffle":
By the way, those Bears beat the Patriots 46-10 in Super Bowl XX, so that was a blowout more famed for defence than offence. Chicago DE Richard Dent was named the game MVP (he had 1.5 sacks, forced two fumbles, including one from Craig James, and blocked a pass), and it was the Bears' defensive players who drew headlines throughout, including holding New England to -19 total yards from scrimmage in the first half and 123 overall (the second-lowest in Super Bowl history). Chicago QB Jim McMahon did throw for Bears. It also had a halftime show of "Up With People presents Beat of the Future," the fifth and final halftime show for that organization, and one mostly remembered as a punchline about what the Super Bowl halftime show used to be.
And yet, that Super Bowl drew 92,570,000 million average viewers. That was the most for any Super Bowl until 1993. And it was far more than the surrounding games featuring a Joe Montana-Dan Marino quarterback duel (Super Bowl XIX, which drew 85,530,000 viewers), John Elway (who lost to Phil Simms in Super Bowl XXI in front of 87,190,000 viewers and Doug Williams in Super Bowl XXII before 80,140,000 viewers), and Montana again (who beat Boomer Esiason in Super Bowl XXIII with 81,590,000 viewers tuning in). So dominant defence certainly has produced viewership results in the past.
While the current Seahawks' defence definitely doesn't have the pop culture fame of the '85 Bears, their dominance here was stunning. And this was just as much about their skillful execution as the Patriots' offensive execution, and about how coach Mike Macdonald (a former defensive coordinator and not the Mike McDaniel who's the ex-Dolphins' coach and current Chargers' OC) crafted this team's defensive identity, approach, and up-to-the-minute adjustments. Jori Epstein highlighted that really well in a detailed on-the-ground morning-after feature for Yahoo, which is well worth reading as a whole (it's the kind of post-Grey Cup quote-heavy strategic feature I always aimed at in the 2010-2016 period I covered that game for Yahoo, but I think it's better than anything I ever pulled off), but here's one key part from the introduction:
Seahawks colleagues describe the second-year, 38-year-old defensive guru as an analytical thinker for whom “Excel is his best friend.”
Players and coaches know that when they talk to Macdonald, he may not respond immediately. He is not ignoring them. He is calculating his response.
“He usually has the look where he would literally pause, look off, and it's like the most awkward five seconds of your life,” defensive backs coach and passing game coordinator Karl Scott told Yahoo Sports on Thursday. “It's him getting to where he needs to get to give you the answer that he feels best about.
Any consumer of any level of NFL content knows the reams of said content created about "offensive guru" coaches over the last decade, from Sean McVay to Kyle Shanahan to McDonald and well beyond. But there have been plenty of coaches with that reputation who haven't worked out. And in every era of football, there have been star-studded defensive minds coaching as well as offensive minds, including the likes of head coaches with defensive backgrounds such as Bill Parcells, Bill Belichick (known much more for his specific defensive background than his offense, although the Patriots' offense was a crucial part of their Super Bowl wins during his tenure), Bill Cowher, and Mike Tomlin.
Great defence is certainly a thing, and it's one that many do embrace and celebrate. It's perhaps more palatable for the widest masses if it's accompanied by better offense than what Seattle showed Sunday (Sam Darnold finished with 19 completions on 38 attempts for 202 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions, which is competent but not much more), but those offensive challenges also meant the game stayed close and was in question heading into the fourth quarter. So even that may have worked out fine for broad viewership.
A major caveat to all this is that this is the first Super Bowl with average viewership reported using the Big Data+Panel methodology Nielsen officially shifted to last September (following years of trials and more-limited usage). That tide definitely lifts boats, and is part of why this Super Bowl came in at No. 2 overall. But while the methodology is a boost, it's not enough to boost a completely-underwhelming game that everyone turned off early (which is what you might have thought this was from some media discussion) to these heights.
And the same can be said about the various other factors here, from Telemundo (which notched the most-viewed Spanish-language Super Bowl ever with 3.3 million viewers) to Bad Bunny to the Patriots' fanbase and their rematch of 2015's Super Bowl XLIX and its infamous ending with a Russell Wilson interception rather than a handoff to Marshawn Lynch. This Super Bowl might have been lower down without those factors, but it certainly wouldn't have been an all-time "dud" from a viewership perspective. And that illustrates that maybe defence isn't always all that bad.
