Notre Dame-Penn State low for a semi, high for an Orange Bowl

Jan 9, 2025; Miami, FL, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish running back Jeremiyah Love (4) leaps over Penn State Nittany Lions linebacker Kobe King (41) in the second half in the Orange Bowl at Hard Rock Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

Pushed a week into the new year, the first College Football Playoff semifinal of the 12-team era was on the lower end of the historical scale.

Thursday’s Notre Dame-Penn State CFP semifinal at the Orange Bowl averaged an 8.9 rating and 17.80 million viewers across ESPN (8.4, 16.92M), ESPN2 (0.39, 733K) and ESPNU (0.07, 144K), ranking just 16th out of the 21 total playoff semifinals.

Comparisons to past years are complicated by the new 12-team format, which has pushed the semifinals a full week past the New Year’s holiday. As a result, it should be no surprise that ratings and viewership fell sharply from last year’s first semifinal, Michigan-Alabama at the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day (13.0, 27.76M), and from TCU-Michigan at the Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Eve 2022 (10.0, 21.70M).

Notre Dame’s win actually increased from the previous Orange Bowl to host a playoff semifinal, Georgia’s New Year’s Eve rout of Michigan in the 2021-22 season (8.1, 17.19M). In fact, only one Orange Bowl in the playoff era has had a larger audience, Alabama-Oklahoma in December 2018 (19.07M).

Dating back to the start of the BCS era in the 1998-99 season, this year’s game ranks as the fifth-most watched Orange Bowl behind the aforementioned 2018 game, the two BCS-era national championship editions (2001 Oklahoma-FSU: 27.24M; 2005 USC-Oklahoma: 21.42M) and Penn State’s triple-overtime win over Florida State in 2006 (18.56M).

Pending results for Friday’s Ohio State-Texas Cotton Bowl, the Orange Bowl ranks second for the college football season behind the New Year’s Day Rose Bowl, now a CFP quarterfinal (21.09M). It should be noted that under the expanded format, it is the quarterfinals, not the semifinals, that benefit from elevated holiday season viewing.

Solid tune-in for Thunder-Cavaliers

Jon Lewis

Jon Lewis has been covering the sports media industry on a daily basis since 2006 as the founder and main writer of Sports Media Watch. You can contact him here or on the social media websites X (Twitter) or Bluesky.

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Comments 14

Jtk1 says:

1 year ago

I don’t see what the problem is, yes it was a Thursday and Friday, big deal, the NFL had played on Thursday all season, plus we always had at one college game on a Friday, so sure it was January 9th and 10th, but hey they were exciting games. Also I wouldn’t change the dates, plus this way, every game had their own game to themselves, no other bowl game competing against it. The only other sporting event was some NBA and college basketball.
Richard says:

1 year ago

To avoid going against the NFL and have the SFs on NYD, the CFB season should be moved up a week, starting in what is now Week0 and the current CCG week would be Black Friday weekend (though I would replace CCGs with playoff play-in games). Then the first 2 rounds could be the first 2 weeks of Dec (when the NFL is prohibited from being broadcast on Sat and Friday night). They should be played at the home site of the higher seed. Then SFs on NYD. People love bowl games so, heck, I’d send the first and 2nd round playoff losers to bowl games too (around NYD). I’d make the Rose Bowl a permanent SF site. Then I’d have the Sugar, Orange, Cotton, Peach, Fiesta, Texas, Las Vegas, and Motor City bowls (because let’s face it, the bowls outside the Rose really are just games staged in NFL stadiums) rotate in hosting the national title game, other SF game, and hosting the teams who lose before the SF (over 8 years).
Samuel says:

1 year ago

Having the CFP semifinals on January 9 and 10 is a terrible move. Having the Orange Bowl, long tied to the New Year’s tradition with the Rose, Sugar and Fiesta, on January 9 is absolutely asinine. It felt too random and too out of place. When you think Orange Bowl (and to an extent CFP semis) you certainly don’t think a Thursday night in the second week of January. These two games didn’t have the big playoff feel to me because I’m simply not used to watching them when they were shown. The first round needs to move back to that Army/Navy date. Then quarterfinals in that December 20-21 range, the semis on New Year’s and the championship on what would be January 13 this year. Otherwise it’s all out of whack and takes too long to complete. Right now, I’m thinking of the NFL playoffs, not too interested in college anymore. Just the wrong time of year to still be playing CFB.
- Kyle says:
  
  1 year ago
  
  I’m not sure the Orange Bowl would feel right on Dec 20 either.
- 4th&long says:
  
  1 year ago
  
  Let’s see what the OSU v Texas game numbers are… so far Penn St has lagged in both opening rounds. The issue with adding more playoff games is it dilutes the product. It takes alot of time to watch 11 playoff games vs 3. Personally I wanted to expand to 6 or 8 (3 rounds), not 12 (4 rounds). There are now 4 rounds of playoff vs 2 in 2024 etc…
  Is CFB getting more games with more overall viewers? Looks like it. But when you overlap with an existing playoff game – it may not be as much as some would expect.
- 4th&long says:
  
  1 year ago
  
  Let me add to my prior post that the Semi finals in 2019 got:
  12/28, 8:00p CLEM-OSU Fiesta Bowl 21.15M
  12/28, 4:00p LSU-OUPeach Bowl (CFP semi) 17.21M +2%
  And 2022 was
  12/31 with GA v OSU at 22.45mm
  12/31 with TCU v MIch at 21.7mm
  only to be followed by Nat Championship at 17.2mm
  
  So with OSU v Texas pending, looks to me like CFP doing fine. Mich was a huge draw against Alabama – the CFP chose to put SMU above Bama in PSt game- they own it.
- ESL says:
  
  1 year ago
  
  Completely agree. January is for NFL playoffs.
  I hope the the NCAA realizes this and changes the format.
4th&long says:

1 year ago

Last year’s CFP Final did 10% less viewership than UA vs UM. That UA V UM game was HUGE, great game. Agree on the NY’s viewing vs Jan 10 expectations.
4th&long says:

1 year ago

I was thinking (hoping) 20mm – but 17.8 mm is within range (10%). Penn St, which had the lowest viewership in opening round and qtr finals – likely lowest in semi’s too. Perhaps its that Penn St is just not a draw. I’m expecting Ohios St/Texas is in the 21-22mm range. We shall see.
I do agree here that the new 11 game format makes comparisons difficult to the old 3 game format. Both for timing and amount of required viewing. Both of these were great games though. 17.8mm is a very good number regardless and it was a good commercial for Friday’s game.
ESL says:

1 year ago

Very disappointing numbers. I knew viewership wasnt going to hit the New Years Day semi final numbers, but with Notre Dame playing I expected they would reach at least 20 million. Not reaching 20 million with Notre Dame playing is a bad sign. This really shows that this playoff dragging through end of January on random Thursday and Fridays is not the right schedule. The playoff needs to be moved up to start earlier in December (Army/Navy weekend). Go back to semi finals on New years Day. Having these game go late into January will hurt the ratings in the long run.
- Ben F says:
  
  1 year ago
  
  Not sure here on the observation and conclusion. “Not reaching 20 million with Notre Dame playing is a bad sign. This really shows that this playoff dragging through end of January on random Thursday and Fridays is not the right schedule.”
  
  Notre Dame v Clemson in 2018, on a Saturday, 12/29/2018 drew 16.8M. As the article mentioned, Mich UGA orange bowl on NYE 2021 drew 17.1M.
  
  The CFP is doing fine, the NY6 games in general are way up collectively with the all being games of weight in new format.
  
  Do agree that scheduling needs to be optimized to have biggest games on NYD. And fatigue could set in after year-1 curiosity / excitement, but those two factors would like at least offset and and would land with 12 being better than 4 team CFP.
Jcilee says:

1 year ago

I genuinely was not aware that this game was played until after it happened.
- Rick James Bible Owner says:
  
  1 year ago
  
  There is no silver bullet for the expanded CFP to maximize ratings. “Get in where you fit in.” The numbers maybe less than on January 1st, but it dwarfs the usual fare it would go against. These are the trade-offs when the mythical national title becomes the mythical national 12 (or 14 or 16, gosh, no)-team playoffs. Attritional for performances (although both semis were good), fans paying for multiple ‘big bowls’ and performers (so many injuries), but as long as the TV check clears, I’ll always be here (even as a Michigan fan for Notre Dame-anOSU, ugh).
George Cooper says:

1 year ago

Not too surprising given this game was not played on New Years Day (one of the 2 or 3 most favorable dates for live sports). And throw in the Saban-Harbaugh coaching matchup together with UA-UM Big Ten-SEC powerhouse matchup and VOLIA one gets 25-27M viewers.