The News in New Media

Super Bowl LVIII: Results Are In

The Kansas City Chiefs took home the Super Bowl win in Las Vegas on February 11th in a roller coaster matchup against the San Francisco 49ers. The game kept viewers on edge as it went into overtime and the winning touchdown was scored in the final three seconds. The event had a total of 6.43 million mentions between Sunday, February 11th to Monday, February 12th, 2024. Overall, Super Bowl LVIII had a reach of 78.18 billion. Setting a new viewership record that was previously at 115.1 million viewers when the Chiefs defeated the Philadelphia Eagles last year. Social media conversations were predominantly held on X, Reddit, News broadcasts, and Instagram, with X having a total of 5,647,399 mentions

One of the key areas of discussion was Travis Kelce’s “attitude” on the field. Kelce was seen speaking to head coach, Andy Reid, during the second quarter of the game in a seemingly aggressive way. The topic had an overall negative sentiment towards Kelce. In his podcast following the game, he stated “I immediately wished I took it back”. 

A topic that also produced a good amount of discussion was Beyonce and her announcement of new music being released during the super bowl half-time performance. Beyonce was also featured in the Verizon Super Bowl ad before sharing the announcement of new music for her Renaissance Album via social media. Usher’s half-time show was a hit and received a lot of positive feedback on social channels, but during his halftime performance Beyonce dropped two songs, “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages”. 

Despite the added element of Beyonce sharing new songs. Usher did experience a lot of positive feedback following his performance at the Super Bowl. 

One of the other topics of conversation that produced a lot of conversation on social media channels was the 30 second series of ads purchased by the State of Israel. Many viewers were shocked to see this and took to social media to discuss the ads. Of note in conversations, a 30 second ad at this year’s Super Bowl cost approximately 7 million. The series of ads used a hashtag, #BringThemHomeNow, to bring attention to the 136 Israeli hostages that were being held by Hamas. 

In the past week, since Super Bowl LVIII, there have been a total of 9.98 million mentions with a reach of 121.32 billion. It has been determined that Super Bowl LVIII was the most watched Super Bowl to date. Collectively between the streaming platforms used, CBS Television Network, Paramount+, Nickelodeon, Univision, NFL+, there were 123.4 million viewers on average.

Author: Lexi Merriman