Expectations were low given the all-SEC pairing, but Alabama-Georgia delivered one of the best college football ratings in recent years.
Monday’s Alabama-Georgia College Football Playoff National Championship delivered a 15.6 rating and 28.4 million viewers on the ESPN family of networks, up 10% in ratings and 9% in viewership from last year (Clemson-Alabama: 14.2, 26.0M) and up 4% and 6% respectively from 2015 (Alabama-Clemson: 15.0, 26.7M). Figures include TV and streaming.
ESPN alone generated 27.4 million and ESPN2 1.0 million (+26%).
Alabama’s overtime win, which peaked with 30.8 million viewers late in the first half (9:30-10 PM ET), was the highest rated and most-watched college football game since the 2015 title game (Ohio State-Oregon: 18.6, 34.1M).
It earned the seventh-largest college football audience in the 20 seasons since the formation of the Bowl Championship Series, the CFP predecessor that began the modern era of postseason play.
Among cable programs only, it ranks third all-time behind two 2015 playoff games — the aforementioned Ohio State-Oregon national championship and the Alabama-Ohio State Sugar Bowl (28.5M). Monday’s numbers include streaming viewership on television only, while 2015 Sugar Bowl figures includes streaming across all devices. It may be the case that once all the streaming numbers comes in, this year’s game will rank second.
Alabama-Georgia easily outpaced the previous all-SEC national championship, beating Alabama-LSU in 2012 by 11% in ratings (vs. 14.0) and 17% in viewership (vs. 24.2M).
Excluding the NFL and the Olympics, the national championship ranks as the fourth-most watched sporting event since 2015, behind Game 7 of last year’s World Series (28.6M), Game 7 of the 2016 World Series (40.9M) and Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals (31.6M). It outdrew three of the weekend’s four NFL Wild Card games, but finished three million short of Panthers-Saints on FOX late Sunday afternoon (31.2M).
In adults 18-49, ESPN and ESPN2 combined for an 8.9 rating — up 9% from last year (8.2). Demo ratings for ESPNU were not available.
Overall, the three-game College Football Playoff averaged 26.3 million viewers, up 18% from last year (22.3M), up 29% from two years ago (20.3M) and the highest since the first year of the playoff in 2015. By comparison, last year’s NBA Finals averaged 20.8 million viewers, last year’s World Series 19.1 million, and last year’s three-game NCAA men’s basketball Final Four 18.8 million. Final Four figures are TV-only.
The complete New Year’s Six averaged 17 million, pending adjustments (+6%). All of the 2017 college football ratings are available here.
College Football National Championship Ratings, BCS/CFP Era
