In a bit of an upset, the Army-Navy Game fell well short of last year’s milestone performance.
Saturday’s Army-Navy Game averaged 7.84 million viewers on CBS, down 17% from last year’s audience of 9.42 million, which was the largest for the game since 1989. Navy’s win still delivered the game’s second-largest audience since 2018, but that is almost certainly because of Nielsen’s methodological changes this year, including an expansion of out-of-home viewing and shift to “Big Data + Panel” methodology.
All things being equal, viewership would almost certainly trail 2019 (7.72M), 2021 (7.58M) and even potentially 2023 (7.18M). The game’s 3.8 household rating — which by definition does not include out-of-home viewing — is tied with 2012, 2022 and 2023 as the lowest for a standalone edition of the game since 2011. (The 2020 game, which aired on a full day of college football games due to COVID, had a 2.8.)
The double-digit decline is somewhat of a surprise. Beyond the aforementioned methodological changes, this year’s game went down to the wire with Navy winning on a fourth-and-goal touchdown. Last year’s game, by contrast, was a 31-13 rout.
Despite the decline, Army-Navy was still the most-watched game on CBS all season, surpassing the previous high of 5.59 million for Indiana-Oregon in October. Army-Navy of course has the advantage of airing in a mostly unopposed window, facing competition only from an FCS playoff game on ABC.
Overall, the game finished outside of the top 20 this season. Last year’s game ranked 11th.
The decline comes amidst some uncertainty regarding the future scheduling of the Army-Navy Game, which since 2009 has aired mostly unopposed on the weekend after the college football conference championship games. But in the event that the College Football Playoff expands past its current 12-team field after this season — as is expected — it is likely that first round games would take place on that weekend.
According to Sports Business Journal, the academies have already begun early discussions about how to deal with the potential CFP competition. Army superintendent Lt. Gen. Steve Gilland told the publication that the academies will try to balance the need to protect their standalone window while still being “adaptable, too.”
The move to the week after the conference championship games coincided with a rise in viewership that has yet to subside. Army-Navy averaged fewer than three million viewers on conference championship weekend in 2008 and then immediately jumped to 5.6 million on the week after in 2009.
