The Super Bowl viewership was on a positive trend from ’91 to ’92. In 1990, there were approximately 70 million viewers of the Super Bowl. The number rocketed in 1991, which was reflected by 80 million spectators, a 10 million improvement compared to previous years. In 1992, the number stayed steady, but in 1993, the number is even higher, surpassing 90 million viewers, signalling a promising future for the Super Bowl.
However, in the next few years, there were many fluctuating periods. In 1994, viewership dropped slightly and then bounced back to a promising number, which was around 95 million in 1995. After that, the number was dropping significantly in 1996, followed by a fair growth in 1997. The trend continued to go unstable until 2001. This situation showed a love-hate relationship between the Super Bowl and its fans.
The line graph over eleven years shows a promising trend with a massive rise from 2001 to 2012. From 2001, the number of spectators was about 85 million viewers. This figure hiked slowly until 2002 and 2003, showing an addition of around 3 million people who stayed on TV for the live match. In the following years, from 2004 to 2006, the number remained a little bit unstable, but still a positive increment, as proven by 2 million newcomers in TV viewership.
After 2006, the viewership started to expand even more prominently. In 2007, it rose to approximately 92 million, and then continued to accelerate from 95 million in 2008 and 98 million in 2009. In 2012, there was a noticeable upsurge to about 104 million. The number peaked in 2012 when there were around 110 million viewers who witnessed the 2012 Super Bowl.
In 2013, people continued to enjoy watching the show, with viewership reaching approximately 108 million. This number remained relatively firm in 2014, then struck a peak in 2015, exploded massively about 111 million spectators, the highest point during the given period. However, after 2015, the society began to lose interest of watching the game, by decreasing its number slightly. A year later in 2016, it dropped to around 109 million, followed by a minor decline in 2017 to approximately 107 million. The slumping trend continued in 2018, when the number of viewers fell more significantly to about 100 million.