All three conference championship games on ABC declined Saturday, but the network still had its most-watched conference championship weekend in a decade.
Saturday’s Georgia-Texas SEC Championship Game averaged 16.6 million viewers across ABC and ESPN, down 5% from Alabama-Georgia on CBS last year (17.52M) but still the fourth-largest audience on record for the game — behind last year, Alabama-Georgia in 2018 (17.57M) and Alabama-Florida in 2009 (17.57M). (Keep in mind out-of-home viewing was not included in Nielsen estimates until 2020.)
The Bulldogs’ overtime win, which peaked with 19.7 million viewers, delivered the largest audience of the college football season — surpassing the previous high set by the regular season matchup between the same two teams.
As goes without saying, the SEC title game was the most-watched of conference championship weekend — a distinction it has held in all-but-one year dating back to 2008. The lone exception was the anomalous COVID year of 2020, when the ACC title game took top honors.
Overall, the SEC title game delivered the third-largest regular season college football audience ever on the ESPN family of networks, trailing only Michigan-Ohio State in 2006 (21.0M) and the same matchup a decade later (16.8M).
The Clemson-SMU ACC Championship followed with 6.0 million viewers, actually down from Florida State-Louisville last year (7.03M). That is despite a considerably stronger lead-in than last year, when coverage followed the American Athletic title game (1.89M). It was still the third-most watched ACC title game since 2015, behind last year and 2020.
Rounding out the ABC slate, the Arizona State-Iowa State Big 12 Championship averaged 6.9 million — down from Texas-Oklahoma State last year (7.89M) and the lowest for the game since 2020 (Oklahoma-Iowa State: 3.03M).
Overall, ABC averaged 8.4 million viewers for a four-game conference championship slate — including Friday’s American Athletic title game — its highest such average in a decade.
