The Ones After the Super Bowl: 10 Biggest Post-Game Shows of All Time

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On Sunday, Super Bowl LIX is expected to draw the largest television audience of the year. Subsequently, more viewers than ever before are likely to tune in to Fox’s game show, The Floor, post-game.

Factors like these are virtually unchangeable in the television sphere. The Super Bowl is consistently the most-viewed individual broadcast of any given year by a significant margin. Moreover, the program that follows it usually attracts a substantial audience, often ranking among the top five entertainment shows on both network and cable TV during that particular season.

For many decades, the post-game segment has been a spectacle. However, it didn’t start out like this. During the early years of the Super Bowl, the network broadcasting the game (which were CBS and NBC as they shared NFL rights at that time) would switch back to their regular Sunday night programming following the game – in fact, for three out of the first four Super Bowls, it was an episode of “Lassie” on CBS.

Over time, broadcasters realized that a significant number of Super Bowl viewers would be seeking post-game entertainment. As a result, they began scheduling episodes of popular series, premieres, and special events during this slot. Here are the top 10 largest audiences ever recorded (with the disclaimer that some viewer numbers from the ’70s and ’80s might be unavailable).

Friends, ‘The One After the Superbowl’ (NBC, 1996)

52.93 million viewers tuned in to watch “Friends” during its second season as part of NBC’s Must-See TV Thursday comedy block. This two-part episode, which featured guest stars Julia Roberts, Brooke Shields, and Jean-Claude Van Damme, catapulted the show to new heights and made it the most-watched episode ever, surpassing even the series finale in 2004 – despite a mistake where “Super Bowl” was written as one word.

Survivor: The Australian Outback, ‘Stranded’ (CBS, 2001)

45.37 million people tuned in for the start of Survivor’s second season, making it the second most-viewed episode in the series history, with only the season one finale having attracted a larger audience.

The Big Event: Kit Carson and the Mountain Men (NBC, 1977) and 60 Minutes (CBS, 1980)

The following two programs attracted the highest number of viewers after the Super Bowl: “NBC’s The Big Event,” which was a Sunday night movie they called it; “Kit Carson and the Mountain Men,” a series about the frontiersman starring Christopher Connelly, and Robert Reed from “The Brady Bunch” fame; lastly, an episode of “60 Minutes.”

The two shows that saw the most viewers post-Super Bowl were “NBC’s The Big Event,” a movie they branded on Sunday nights, featuring Christopher Connelly in “Kit Carson and the Mountain Men” and Robert Reed from “The Brady Bunch”; last but not least, an episode of “60 Minutes.

The Last Precinct, Pilot (NBC, 1986)

39.73 million people tuned in to watch the comedy-drama starring Adam West as the commander of an unconventional LAPD team when it premiered in January following the Super Bowl. Regrettably, a significant number of viewers didn’t continue watching after the initial episode, and the show was ultimately canceled following seven additional episodes.

Undercover Boss, ‘Waste Management’ (CBS, 2010)

38.65 million people watched the series premiere of CBS’ reality show, where CEOs and management personnel disguised themselves as hourly workers to experience their companies from an outside C-suite perspective. This show garnered high ratings for a couple of years before its popularity decreased but it ran for 11 seasons.

Grey’s Anatomy, ‘It’s the End of the World’ (ABC, 2006)

Back when season two’s “Grey’s” episode debuted post-Super Bowl, a ratings halo was still a thing, and boy did it shine brightly on this show! The first part of the infamous “bomb in a body cavity” story drew an astounding crowd, and guess what? For 32 out of the next 34 episodes, I, as a viewer, was among the 20 million+ who tuned in each week. That’s something only seen four times in the previous 24 episodes! It wasn’t until the start of the fourth season that the viewership dipped below that magic number. As a gamer, I can say it was quite the gaming-like experience to be part of this massive audience surge!

The Voice, ‘Blind Auditions Part 1’ (NBC, 2012)

37.61 million people tuned in to watch “The Voice” during its first airing in the spring of 2011. NBC decided to invest heavily in the show for its second season, and it paid off — the viewership consistently remained above that of the first season for ten more cycles, lasting until the 2016-17 season.

All in the Family, ‘Super Bowl Sunday’ (CBS, 1978)

35.47 million people tuned in to watch this episode, which was the first post-Super Bowl show to explicitly reference the game and its increasing influence on popular culture. Although it fell under the category of regular programming (as All in the Family was part of CBS’s Sunday lineup during the 1977-78 season), it still managed to tackle the Super Bowl theme. The storyline centered around Archie (played by Carroll O’Connor) hosting a Super Bowl party at his bar, while two men were casing the place with the intention of robbing it.

3rd Rock From the Sun, ’36! 24! 36! Dick’ (NBC, 1998)

33.66 million people were watching when the sitcom featuring aliens disguised as humans aired on Super Bowl Sunday. NBC chose this high-profile slot to increase viewership, but the boost was temporary. The show quickly returned to its typical position in the ratings and continued for two more seasons.

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2025-02-09 20:25