After a relatively soft outing for the first semifinal of the expanded College Football Playoff, the Ohio State-Texas Cotton Bowl delivered a considerably stronger audience Friday night.
Friday’s Ohio State-Texas CFP semifinal at the Cotton Bowl averaged a 10.0 rating and 20.6 million viewers across ESPN (9.5, 19.6M), ESPN2 (0.44, 819K) and ESPNU (0.11, 218K), marking the ninth-largest audience for a CFP semifinal (22 total; keep in mind several aired before Nielsen began including out-of-home viewing in its estimates). The Buckeyes have played in five of the top ten, more than any other program.
The Buckeyes’ win, which peaked with 22.7 million viewers, increased over last year’s second semifinal — Washington-Texas at the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day (9.3, 18.8M). Compared to the second semifinal two seasons ago, Georgia-Ohio State at the Peach Bowl on New Year’s Eve, ratings increased from 9.8 but viewership declined from 22.4 million.
It was the most-watched Friday television program across all networks in more than four years, since a Vikings-Saints NFL game on Christmas 2020. (The recent Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight on Netflix, which aired on a Friday night, was not measured by Nielsen.)
Viewership was the highest on record for the Cotton Bowl, which has hosted playoff games in three prior seasons. The previous high was 18.6 million for an Alabama-Michigan State semifinal on New Year’s Eve 2015, the second year of the playoff. The last time the Cotton Bowl hosted a semifinal three years ago, Alabama-Cincinnati drew an 8.6 and 16.6 million in a daytime New Year’s Eve window.
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The Cotton Bowl delivered the second-largest audience of the college football season, trailing Ohio State’s rout of Oregon in the Rose Bowl, a CFP quarterfinal (21.1M). It comfortably outdrew the other CFP semifinal, Notre Dame-Penn State in the Orange Bowl (8.9, 17.20M).
