The College Football Playoff National Championship dominated television viewing on Monday, January 8.
As previously noted, Michigan’s win over Washington in the CFP National Championship averaged a combined 25 million viewers across ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN Deportes, making it the most-watched title game in four years. Viewership trailed only the previous week’s Rose Bowl as the highest of the college football season.
Compared to Georgia’s historic rout of TCU in last year’s title game, viewership rose 45 percent.
Ranking a very distant second among live sporting events Monday, a Suns-Clippers NBA regular season game averaged 261,000 — up from last year opposite the national title game (Bulls-Celtics: 221K).
Beyond live sports, the most notable result from Monday was a near-record audience for “The Pat McAfee Show,” which averaged 449,000 viewers on ESPN — trailing only the day after Christmas as the most-watched episode (483K). Monday marked the first edition of the show since McAfee criticized ESPN executive Norby Williamson on-air, a move that generated considerable weekend headlines. At the same time, it is entirely possible that the viewership high had less to do with the controversy than the lead-up toward the national championship.
The three most-watched editions of the McAfee show have come on the past three Mondays.
Monday, January 8 sports viewership
Updated chart:
Original chart below:
