The Pac-12 Conference bows out with a top-five matchup Friday night. How many viewers should we expect for #3 Washington vs. #5 Oregon?
How to watch the Pac-12 title game
Date: Friday, December 1
Time: 8:00 PM ET
Networks: ABC
Streaming options: Sling (as ESPN3), Fubo, DIRECTV STREAM, YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV. (If you purchase a subscription, this site may receive a commission.)
, The full college football schedule is available here.
Backstory
There is always a bit of wistfulness surrounding college football championship weekend. College football is not like the other American sports — at least not yet — in that the regular season is truly the ‘main event.’ Yes, playoff and bowl implications have always imbued regular season games with a particular meaning, but one could realistically eliminate the postseason entirely and #2 Ohio State vs. #3 Michigan would still matter all the same. Every regular season Saturday carries an energy that simply cannot be replicated by a bowl game on the Wednesday after Christmas, or even the Rose and Sugar on New Year’s Day. The playoff is the goal, but the regular season is the show. Championship weekend marks its official end — and this year, the official end of college football in its current form.
Friday marks the final game in the history of the Pac-12, though the conference and branding will technically live on. This year’s finalists, Oregon and Washington, are headed to the Big Ten next season — just two of ten schools set to leave for greener pastures. Oregon State and Washington State will remain in a two-team conference, primarily playing Mountain West competition next season (as was officially announced earlier Friday).
The mismanagement that brought the Pac-12 to this point must be especially painful given the conference’s resurgence this season. Deion Sanders’ Colorado squad was the talk of college football in the first month of the season — delivering some of the largest audiences of the season — while Oregon and Washington have carried the conference mantle to the doorstep of the playoff. Had this season’s results played out a year ago, the Pac-12 could have gone to market touting a membership that includes three of the marquee teams in college football. Perhaps that would not have made a difference in the media rights negotiations that ultimately spelled the conference’s doom, but if there is any question whether the Pac-12 could have weathered the absence of USC and UCLA and remain “Power Five” quality, those have been answered.
Ratings prediction
There has never been a Pac-12 Championship with stakes like this year’s matchup of #3 Washington and #5 Oregon, a rematch of one of the best games of the regular season. That October matchup averaged seven million viewers on ABC, more than any Pac-12 Championship Game ever played. Expect viewership to land in that range Friday night.
Pac-12 Championship: #5 Oregon – #3 Washington (8p Fri ABC). Prediction: 7.16M.
Most-watched Pac-12 title games
#1: 2014 Oregon-Arizona, 6.00 million viewers.
#2: 2023 Utah-USC, 5.97 million.
#3: 2019 Oregon-Utah, 5.86 million.
#4: 2016 Washington-Colorado, 5.67 million.
#5: 2012 Stanford-UCLA, 4.87 million.
