The overnight rating dropped, and so did the size of the audience.
Via SportsBusiness Daily, the total audience of 111.3 million was the lowest TV crowd since 2013, when a power outage at the Superdome during the second half of the Ravens-49ers game caused the audience to scatter, keeping the total figure at 108.4 million.
The high-water mark came two years ago in Arizona, when 114.4 million tuned to NBC for a Patriots-Seahawks classic. Last year, the audience dropped to 111.9 for Panthers-Broncos.
The fact that the latest Super Bowl, which generated zero points in the first quarter, a whiff of a blowout in the second quarter, and a 28-3 margin in quarter three, dropped only 600,000 from Super Bowl 50 is impressive -- especially in light of the doom and gloom (#boomandgloom) generated by the ratings throughout the 2016 season.