College football Nielsen viewership for the 2026 season.
2026 College Football TV Ratings
Viewership figures obtained from Nielsen, network PR. For more details on the ratings, see further down this page.
Week 1 Viewership
NBC's Sunday night Wisconsin-Notre Dame game topped a quiet week one of the college football season. With 8.1 million viewers across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, it was the only game of week one to top the six million viewer mark.
Week 1 College Football Viewership Chart
Updated for the 2026 season
The College Football Ratings page will be a bit different this year. The usual charts will return, but this year will include the addition of news updates akin to the Sports Ratings Tracker page.
Nielsen’s methodological changes
Last year (2025), Nielsen introduced a new methodology that integrates “Big Data” from smart TVs and set-top boxes — plus first-party streaming data provided by participating network partners — with its traditional panel. That change generally boosted viewership for live sporting events over the past year (with the noted exceptions of NASCAR and the WWE).
This year, Nielsen will be introducing a new co-viewing metric into its currency that in pilot testing boosted viewership about four percent. Between this year’s co-viewing change, last fall’s introduction of “Big Data + Panel,” and the expansion of Nielsen’s out-of-home viewing sample in February of last year, comparisons to past years are generally going to be skewed.
Why are there no ratings for SEC Network, ACC Network and more?
The television networks pay Nielsen to measure viewership for their events. In some cases, they may choose not to. In a statement to Sports Media Watch, ESPN explained its rationale for not subscribing to Nielsen measurement for SEC Network, ACC Network, Longhorn Network and more:
ESPN: “We regularly evaluate measurement options and currently use ComScore for all demographic, viewership and research data for ESPN’s college conference networks. We have found that this best suits our needs across the board.”
Nielsen ratings explainer
Rating: The percentage of television homes tuned to the game in the average minute. 1.9% of U.S. television homes were tuned to the 2023 Navy-Notre Dame game in the average minute.
Viewers: The number of viewers aged 2+ viewing the game in the average minute. Navy-Notre Dame averaged 3.56 million viewers per minute. (That does not mean 3.56 million viewers total watched the game. Nielsen uses a separate total viewing figure to estimate how many viewers watched at least six minutes of any given telecast. Typically, that figure is significantly higher than the average viewership listed here.)
Nielsen uses sampling data to estimate television audiences, which means your specific decision to watch or not watch a game does not have any direct impact on the numbers — unless you have been chosen by Nielsen to be part of its sample and agreed to do so.
Does viewership include streaming?
All Nielsen figures include streaming viewership through “virtual MVPDs” (ex. YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, Sling, Fubo, DIRECTV STREAM) on television, computer and mobile devices.
Does viewership include DVR?
Yes, all Nielsen figures cited here include same-day DVR. Nielsen also releases viewership figures that include three, seven and even 35 days of DVR viewing, but those are not shown here as they are not particularly relevant for sporting events.
Does viewership include bars and restaurants?
As of August 31, 2020, all Nielsen figures include out-of-home viewing. Again, Nielsen uses sampling data to calculate the audience, meaning that your viewing of a sporting event outside of your home does not count unless you are in a “Nielsen family.”
Ratings for previous seasons
Previous college football TV ratings pages are available through the following links: 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012.
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