If there was any question whether the expanded playoff would lower the importance of matchups like Georgia-Alabama, they were answered resoundingly on the field — and in the ratings.
Saturday’s Georgia-Alabama college football game averaged a 6.0 rating and 11.99 million viewers on ABC, marking the largest college football audience of the young season, and the most-watched ABC game — including bowls and conference championships — since the January 2020 Citrus Bowl (Alabama-Michigan: 14.00M). Excluding bowls, it was the network’s most-watched game since Alabama-Florida State on the opening weekend of the 2017 season (12.34M).
The Crimson Tide’s entertaining win, which peaked with 14.1 million viewers, outdrew the teams’ previous regular season meeting in 2020 (9.80M) — though any viewership figures from that particular year should be taken with a grain of salt.
There was some question when the College Football Playoff expanded from four to 12 teams whether regular season matchups would still carry the same importance, but the action on the field Saturday was indistinguishable from any year with theoretically higher stakes.
Earlier in the day, ABC averaged 5.04 million for Oklahoma-Auburn — up from Kansas-Texas in the same window last year (3.32M), though down from the comparable year-ago edition of the “SEC on CBS” (Georgia-Auburn: 6.40M). Keep in mind the CBS 3:30 game never had to compete with concurrent SEC action on other networks. ABC’s 3:30 PM ET SEC window aired directly opposite competing SEC action on ESPN, Arkansas-Texas A&M at 1.80 million.
ABC opened its tripleheader with 3.99 million for Kentucky’s upset of Mississippi — up sharply from Clemson-Syracuse a year ago (1.98M) and the top audience in a Noon ET window that also included Minnesota-Michigan on FOX “Big Noon Saturday” (3.60M).
Speaking of “Big Noon,” Michigan’s win posted a sizable decline from last year’s matchup of Deion Sanders‘ Colorado against USC (7.24M). While Michigan was no match for last year’s Buffaloes, neither was Colorado a match for last year’s Wolverines. Colorado-UCF led out with 4.17 million, down from last year’s Michigan-Nebraska game (4.48M).
Rounding out the FOX slate, Oregon-UCLA drew 1.50 million in an 11 PM ET window that followed Major League Baseball.
In other broadcast network action, NBC drew 3.09 million for Illinois-Penn State in primetime, up from Michigan State-Iowa last year (2.17M). CBS is not disclosing viewership figures at this time as its contract with Nielsen has expired.
Turning to cable, Friday’s Virginia Tech-Miami game topped the weekend with 3.26 million on ESPN — trailing only Stanford-Colorado last year (3.29M) as the network’s most-watched Friday game in the past six years. The Hurricanes’ narrow win easily outdistanced the Washington-Rutgers game on FOX at 1.93 million.
ESPN’s Saturday slate topped out at 1.88 million for Oklahoma State-Kansas State on Saturday, down from Florida-Kentucky at 2.32 million last year.
