This year’s Super Bowl pits two low-wattage teams in a rematch from 11 years ago. It won’t be a shock if this year’s broadcast, on NBC, sees a drop from last year’s record ratings.

The good news for all involved: Last year’s game caught on nearly 128 million TV viewersthe most watched program in US history. No other telecast gets even half the audience in 2025. Anything less than a catastrophic decline likely means this year’s Super Bowl still gets twice the audience of any live US television program in 2026.

What is it about the National Football League championship that allows this against gravity and remains a universally watched piece of American television? In a word, scarcity. The NFL has perfected the art of giving the people what they want – but not too much of it. And there are three different audiences who tune in to the big game to get something they can’t get anywhere else on TV.

The main audience is, of course, a nation’s worth of football fanatics: 83 of the top 100 US broadcasts in 2025 NFL games, according to Nielsen. In a 2025 survey by S&P Global Market Intelligence that asked US fans of various sports whether they identified as casual or avid fans, the NFL was the only league where more than half of the respondents (55%) who said they watched the game classified themselves as avid.

And a good part of the fans like to bet on the game. They are expected to set a record $1.76 billion in legal bets at the event on Sunday, according to the American Gaming Association. Traders in the prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket have exchanged more than $800 million of Super Bowl-related contracts.

This year’s matchup between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots will be devoid of the typical superstars of the recent past – no Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, Rob Gronkowski or Travis Kelce. Neither of the quarterbacks running the show at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California — Seattle’s Sam Darnold or New England’s Drake Maye — is likely to host. Saturday Night Live anytime soon.

Yet Sunday is the closest thing the US has to a sports national holiday. (The game starts at 6:30 pm US East Coast time.)

The NFL builds demand for the regular season, playing 272 games a year. The NBA plays a total of 1,230, while each Major League Baseball team plays 162.

Other sports leagues also ask their fans to commit to two months’ worth of seven-game series for their respective playoffs. The NFL counters with 13 total postseason games in five weeks. Unlike its pro competitors in the US, football is winner-take-all in every playoff matchup until the Super Bowl.

But football fans alone cannot explain the success of the Super Bowl. As it surpassed baseball and basketball to do America’s favorite leaguethe NFL has hit on a key ingredient to take it beyond a sporting event. This makes halftime, which is the least interesting part of the event as the teams retreat to rest in the locker room, which is probably the most entertaining. Once a home for safe but boring bets like college marching bands, halftime went in a new direction in 1993. That year, while the Dallas Cowboys were busy blowing out the Buffalo Bills, Michael Jackson performed a medley of hits.

In the late 2000s, A-list acts like Bruce Springsteen who could sell out a football stadium by themselves became the norm, and audiences continued to climb. The 1996 Super Bowl, between the Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers, attracted 94 million viewers, then a record for the event. Every game since 2008 has topped that number.

And the halftime show continues to improve as Super Bowl viewership increases. The NFL hasn’t shared its budget figures for the show, but it won’t be cheap: Reuters reports that the 2020 show, featuring Jennifer Lopez and Shakira and lasting 13 minutes, worth $13 million. Scarcity is also at work here. Viewers don’t get a live television spectacle of this magnitude anywhere else.

Today’s Super Bowl performers expect a big bump from their appearances. Last year, Kendrick Lamar saw a 175% increase in the streams of Spotify after playing the show. Last year, Usher is up 550%. And Rihanna in front of him saw a 640% jump.

At least if more viewers tune in this Sunday to see what producer Roc Nation has in store for 2026 performers, Bad Bunny and Green Day — and what political statement live television can make. It’s not avoided from criticism by President Donald Trump.

Finally, the weekend should also bring in an audience that might not care about football or music. Each Super Bowl has roughly 50 minutes of advertising time – the most valuable 50 minutes on television. Advertisers treat the game like their own championship, waiting all year to unveil the most expensive, star-studded commercials made for tonight.

NBC sold 90% of its Super Bowl ad inventory before the season even started. Average price: $8 millionwith some paying up to $10 million.

These commercials have long been a draw. Apple Music is now the presenting sponsor of the Super Bowl halftime show. Apple focuses on IBM in a 1984 ad that made the release of its Macintosh computer a cultural phenomenon.

There are countless viewers who can’t name a single player on any team but want to see what products well-known brands will try to sell. Especially since it is more common these days to join the biggest entertainment stars: This year, Bradley Cooper, Ben Affleck and George Clooney are among the celebs featured in the commercials.

Before the Super Bowl dominated the most-watched lists, it spent years trying to unseat the final episode of M*A*S*Hthat nearly 106 million viewers watched in 1983. The league’s final topped that number in the 2010 Super Bowlwhen New Orleans beat Indianapolis.

History teaches us about sports and more than that no dynasty lasts forever. But in this age of scattered viewers pondering endless options, it’s hard to imagine what could be taking the big game away anytime soon.