Previewing the ratings for the College Football Playoff semifinals, which are back on New Year’s Day this season. A breakdown of all the relevant factors, from out-of-home viewing to the New Year’s Day date — plus will the FSU snub make any difference?
Backstory
It is perhaps fitting that the successor to the Bowl Championship Series ends its first incarnation with controversy. The four-team College Football Playoff was supposed to end the annual grousing over which teams were left out of the mix. Instead of computers picking the nation’s top two teams, a committee would select the top four. Between the expanded field and the power of human deliberation, the days of undefeated 2004 Auburn being left out of the national title picture were over, or so one thought. The four-team playoff era began with the omissions of TCU and Baylor a decade ago and ends with Georgia and Florida State similarly snubbed. The Florida State omission in particular — the first time an undefeated Power 5 champion has been excluded since aforementioned Auburn — has been the talk of college football since the selections were made. FSU’s 60-point Orange Bowl drubbing at the hands of Georgia makes the committee’s decision look better, but for weeks the controversy overshadowed the actual playoff matchups.
In the BCS era, such controversies had a material impact on the ratings. In 2001, Nebraska made the National Championship over Oregon despite being ranked #4 in the AP poll. Their blowout loss to Miami averaged 21.6 million viewers, nearly six million fewer than the prior year (Oklahoma-FSU: 27.24M). In 2004, Oklahoma got into the title game over USC despite losing the Big 12 title game to Kansas State. Not only did the Sooners’ title-game loss to LSU average five million fewer viewers than the prior year (23.94M), it barely outdrew the USC-Michigan Rose Bowl three days earlier (23.87M). When undefeated SEC champion Auburn got snubbed the following year, the national championship averaged 21.42 million — the smallest audience for the title game until the COVID year of 2021 (USC’s 55-21 rout of Oklahoma had something to do with it as well).
Will the Florida State snub impact this year’s semifinal viewership in the same way? Outside of Leon County, Florida, it seems unlikely. The only other CFP-era controversy of any significance was the previously mentioned snub of Baylor and TCU in 2014, and it had no impact on the viewership — which remains the highest in the history of the playoff. The semifinals that year were hosted by the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day, a combination that has consistently delivered the largest audiences of the CFP era.
If one excludes the anomalous COVID year of 2021, the semis have taken place on New Year’s Day just twice entering this season, 2014-15 and 2017-18. Those two years rank as the most-watched semifinals in CFP history, and that is without the inflationary effect of out-of-home viewing — which Nielsen began including its viewership estimates three years ago and has turbocharged viewership on holidays like New Year’s Day, which feature widespread family gatherings. It stands to reason that this year’s semis will at worst rank on par with the prior New Year’s Day editions, and (given the inclusion of out-of-home viewing) possibly surpass them.
That is not the only reason why the FSU snub is unlikely to affect the ratings. BCS-era controversies resulted in lopsided national championship games involving teams who showed themselves to be clearly inferior to those excluded. Again with the possible exception of Leon County, there are few observers who believe Alabama is undeserving of the playoff. The Tide enter their Rose Bowl matchup with Michigan a slight underdog, and given the recent history of SEC teams in the playoff, that might be selling them short. FSU’s 63-3 Orange Bowl loss to Georgia has already given ammunition to those who believe the committee made the right decision, even with the caveat that much of the team did not play. A good game between Alabama and Michigan, or really anything short of an unlikely Wolverines rout, will further back up the decision.
Independent of the controversy, good games are good for ratings. If Alabama-Michigan and Texas-Washington are as close as oddsmakers expect, they will end up as two of the most competitive semifinals in CFP history. If one has competitive games involving marquee programs on New Year’s Day, there is simply nothing — nothing on-the-field anyway — that is going to slow that ratings roll.
One mitigating factor to keep in mind is the fact that ESPN is now in barely 70 million homes, down about 20 million from the 2017-18 season. While most of that erosion has been in households that do not watch sports, Monday will be a test of just how much out-of-home viewing can overcome a sharply reduced television universe.
Ratings prediction
Only three times has a CFP semifinal topped the 25 million viewer mark. Two were in the inaugural 2014-15 season (Ohio State-Alabama: 28.27M; Oregon-FSU: 28.16M) and the third was three years later (Georgia-Oklahoma: 26.91M). Expect this year’s games to extend that number to five. Between out-of-home viewing, the matchups and the relative uncertainty, this year’s games have the potential to be the most-watched yet.
— CFP semifinal at the Rose Bowl: #4 Alabama-#1 Michigan (5p Mon ESPN). Prediction: 27.15 million viewers.
— CFP semifinal at the Sugar Bowl: #3 Texas-#2 Washington (8:45p Mon ESPN). Prediction: 25.49 million.
Most-watched CFP semifinals
All six New Year’s Day CFP semifinals — even including the COVID year of 2021 — rank among the ten most-watched.
