America loves the Super Bowl. Canada loves it more.

At least based on this year’s TV ratings.

Anyone doubting the U.S. pro league’s popularity in Canada after the demise of the ill-conceived Bills-in-Toronto series needs to digest the following numbers, to convince himself of his error.

The Super Bowl was viewed by more people in Canada than in the United States, on a per-capita basis.

TV ratings numbers provided this week by Canadian host broadcaster CTV indicate that 55% of all Canadians (19.3 million of 35.1 million) watched at least part of last Sunday night’s thrilling Super Bowl telecast, either on English broadcaster CTV or French network RDS.

By comparison, 51% of all Americans (161.3 million of 316.1 million) watched the game on NBC, according to statistics released by the NFL.

CTV, Canada’s largest private broadcaster, simulcasts the NBC feed. It subs out American commercials for a mix of its own ads plus a too-frequent, always-annoying mini-loop of grating promos for CTV shows.

The Super Bowl is one of the most-watched TV shows each year in Canada. It has been the top-rated show each year in the U.S. going back decades.

This year’s game, in which the New England Patriots held off the defending champion Seattle Seahawks 28-24 in a down-to-the-wire classic, blew away the previous record average audience in Canada with 9.2 million viewers (8.2 million on CTV, 1 million on RDS).

That’s 13% more than the 8.2 million across Canada who watched the New York Giants defeat the Patriots three years ago, the previous domestic record audience for an NFL title game.

The Super Bowl last year drew 7.9 million Canadian viewers, and 7.4 million the year before that.

Katy Perry’s halftime show on Sunday drew an average Canadian audience of 12.2 million.

What is no less surprising about the just-concluded NFL season’s playoff ratings in Canada is that earlier games similarly set records.

Seattle’s miraculous comeback win over Green Bay on Jan. 18 was the most-watched afternoon NFL conference championship game in Canadian history, with an average audience of 2.3 million. It was the most-watched TV program that week in Canada.

A week earlier, on the second Saturday night in January, 1.56 million Canadians watched the Patriots rally twice to defeat the Baltimore Ravens. It was the most-watched program in Canada that Saturday night.

Which means NFL playoff games drew more viewers than Hockey Night in Canada on each of the last three weekends of the NFL season.

The Sunday Jan. 11 divisional playoff thriller between Dallas and Green Bay drew 1.6 million viewers in Canada. The average divisional-playoff weekend audience of 1.4 million represented an 11% increase over last year, and 37% of all Canadians (12.9 million) at some point watched one of those four games.

In the States, a record average TV viewership of 114.4 million watched Super Bowl XLIX, eclipsing last year’s record by 2 million. Viewership peaked at 120.8 million in the fourth quarter.

4 CANUCKS TO COMBINE: Invitees to the NFL’s scouting combine were announced Friday. There are 323. Four are born-and-raised Canadians, and it may turn out that more have sort-of Canadian status.

The four we do know, who will be grilled, inspected and (if healthy) worked out from Feb. 17-23 in Indianapolis:

– RB Tyler Varga (Yale University) from Kitchener, Ont., who turned some heads at the Senior Bowl two weeks ago.

– OT Brett Boyko (UNLV) from Saskatoon, who is the CFL Scouting Bureau’s top ranked prospect for May’s CFL draft.

– QB Brandon Bridge (University of South Alabama), who is from Mississauga. He transferred from Alcorn State. He has one cool Twitter handle: @Air_Canada_7.

– DL Christian Covington (Rice University), who is from Vancouver. The son of CFL Hall of Fame defensive end Grover Covington (a Hamilton Tiger-Cat) dislocated a knee cap in November. He is not expected to work out at the combine.

john.kryk@sunmedia.ca

@JohnKryk

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