Glendale, Arizona - Two high-octane offenses and a dramatic finish for Super Bowl LVII gave the Fox telecast the ingredients for the game's third-largest audience in history, according to preliminary audience figures.

Nielsen data shows the 38-35 victory by the Kansas City Chiefs over the Philadelphia Eagles was watched by an average of 113 million viewers. The telecast from State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, was close behind the previous record set in 2015, when 114.4 million viewers watched the New England Patriots triumph 28-24 over the Seattle Seahawks on NBC.

Fox had the second most-watched Super Bowl in 2017, when 113.6 million viewers saw the New England Patriots top the Atlanta Falcons in overtime. When the final number is tallied, Super Bowl LVII could surpass that number.

The audience figure includes 7 million people who watched on streaming devices, a figure added to Super Bowl totals in recent years. The total also includes 951,000 viewers who watched the Spanish-language telecast of the game on Fox Deportes.

The number for the game – always the most-watched program in the US of any genre each year – solidifies the NFL's status as the most durable and reliable TV property, attracting the kind of large audiences no longer attainable through scripted TV shows or awards programs.

Advertisers paid an average of nearly $7 million to have a 30-second spot run in the game, according to a Fox Sports representative. Last year, NBC's commercials went for an average of about $6.5 million, according to the research firm Kantar.

The telecast included the usual array of celebrity-laden commercials produced for the game.

The audience favorite, according to USA Today's annual ad meter ranking, was the spot for online pet food company the Farmer's Dog that depicted a longtime bond between a dog and its owner, backed by a soulful track, Forever by singer Lee Fields.

There was also a bizarre Christian ad centering Jesus Christ, who, viewers were informed, "gets us."

As always, the audience numbers were helped along by the halftime show, which featured a widely praised halftime performance by Rihanna. The star set social media ablaze afterward with the confirmation that she is pregnant with her second child.

The audience for the telecast spiked to 118.7 million viewers during her performance.