A breakout performance by Zach Wilson, a surprisingly close game and the presence of one of the globe’s biggest celebrities produced record ratings for Sunday night’s Jets-Chiefs game.
The game brought in an average of 27 million viewers to NBC and Peacock for the “Sunday Night Football” broadcast, making it the most-watched Sunday show since Super Bowl 57 in February.
The Jets fell to the Chiefs 23-20, but stunned most of the football world – along with their fans – by coming back from a 17-0 first-half deficit to tie the score in the third quarter.
All of this played out with Taylor Swift watching from a suite at MetLife Stadium to support her rumored beau Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
Hollywood superstars Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively and Hugh Jackman were also in attendance with Swift, who also had Kelce’s mom Donna in the suite with her.
The game’s largest audience came in between 9:30-9:45 p.m. when the Jets pulled within eight points of the Chiefs in the second quarter.
At the time there were an estimated 29.4 million viewers tuning in, according to an NBC Sports press release.
The network really turned into the Swift-Kelce narrative during the course of the game, which included a special promo for the game featuring the singer’s 2014 hit “Welcome to New York.”
As Fox had done the week prior when Swift was at the Chiefs’ game against the Chicago Bears, NBC panned to Swift throughout the broadcast.
As Kelce had seen with his social media influence and jersey sales since news of their reported romance broke, NBC saw a huge boost thanks to the “Swifties.”
The “Sunday Night Football” broadcast saw a 53 percent spike in viewership among teen girls ages 12-17, a 24 percent increase in female viewership among 18-24 year-olds and a 34 percent jump in female viewers 35-plus, according to the network.
All in all, the broadcast had a collective increase in female views of more than two million.
