The inaugural opening round of the expanded College Football Playoff delivered some of the top audiences of the current season.
The new opening round of the College Football Playoff delivered two of the three-largest audiences of the season, led by Tennessee-Ohio State at a 7.1 rating and 14.68 million across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU — the second-largest audience of the season, behind only the Georgia-Texas SEC Championship (16.6M).
The Buckeyes’ win, which peaked with 16.5 million viewers in the fast-nationals, ranks 35th out of the 74 total College Football Playoff games — including New Year’s Six games that had no playoff implications — almost exactly in the middle of the road.
Indiana-Notre Dame averaged a 6.8 and 13.39 million on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 the previous night, marking the third-largest audience of the season. Notre Dame’s win, which peaked with 14.8 million in the fast-nationals, was the team’s most-watched home game since their 1993 “Game of the Century” against Florida State (22.0M).
As for the two Saturday afternoon windows that aired on TNT Sports opposite the NFL, Clemson-Texas averaged 8.90 million and SMU-Penn State 6.60 million — the two most-watched cable-exclusive college football games all season. The games also delivered the two largest college football audiences ever on TNT Sports, which prior to this year had not any carried games since 2006. The previous high was 2.8 million for the 1996 Carquest Bowl (currently known as the Pop-Tarts Bowl).
(The last time any of the TNT networks scored a larger audience in the month of December — sports or otherwise — was 23 years ago, when the premiere of the Whoopi Goldberg TNT original movie film “Call Me Claus” averaged 9.4 million.)
The Longhorns’ win, which peaked with 9.5 million viewers, delivered the largest college football audience opposite the NFL in four years — since the 2020 ACC and SEC Championship games, which were pushed back two weeks due to COVID and aired opposite a pair of NFL games on NFL Network.
By playoff standards, the Saturday games rank on the lower end of the scale — but as might go without saying, prior to this year there had never been a playoff or New Year’s Six game in afternoon windows opposite the NFL.
It should be noted that ABC carried competing FCS college football games in both windows, with South Dakota State-North Dakota State drawing 1.58 million and South Dakota-Montana State 1.37 million. Combined, the FCS and FBS windows averaged 8.18 and 10.27 million viewers opposite the NFL.
