The city of Pittsburgh was very interested in Super Bowl LI, which was ultimately won by the New England Patriots in overtime.
The initial overnight television ratings for Super Bowl LI were posted Monday morning on Twitter by Michael Mulvihill of Fox Sports and the city of Pittsburgh was the top market with a 57.9 share, meaning that’s the percentage of all households with televisions tuned into the game.
The city of Atlanta finished third in the overnight ratings, while the city of Boston ranked eighth overall with a 54.3 percent share.
Most of the Pittsburgh market was obviously cheering for the Atlanta Falcons to beat the Patriots and through nearly the first three quarters of the game, it looked as though that was going to happen. The Patriots, however, went on to pull off the greatest Super Bowl comeback of all-time and you have to wonder if a few televisions in the city of Pittsburgh didn’t survive that.
Regardless of what city that you might live in and if you are a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers, watching the Patriots come back to win their fifth Lombardi Trophy was an excruciating process. I know it was for me and it took a few hours to completely digest what I just observed happen in the fourth quarter.
Recently, Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger admitted that the Patriots were Pittsburgh’s big brother. Sunday night in Houston, more than just a few fans of the Steelers as well as the team’s players watched that big brother snatch another Lombardi Trophy from the jaws of defeat just two weeks after eliminating the Steelers from the playoffs in Foxboro.
If Super Bowl LI can be considered a reality television show, the outcome of it is one that many Steelers fans never want to witness again. As long as Patriots quarterback Tom Brady continues to play, Steelers fans might not want to tune-in to future Super Bowls if New England is one of the two teams playing in it.
