Army-Navy ratings bounce back; CBS tops season

Army-Navy ratings recovered after last year’s low, capping a season in which CBS ranked as the most-watched college football network.

The Army-Navy Game averaged a 4.2 rating and 7.57 million viewers on CBS Saturday afternoon, up 51% in ratings and 54% in viewership from last year — when it faced a full slate of college football games — but down 13% and 2% respectively from 2019 (4.9, 7.72M).

Navy’s win, which peaked with just shy of 10 million viewers, delivered the fifth-largest audience for the Army-Navy game in the 25 years since it began airing on CBS. With that said, it topped only last year as the least-watched edition of the game since 2015.

Army-Navy tied the tenth-highest college football rating of the season and delivered the 13th-largest audience.

CBS finished the college football season averaging 5.34 million viewers per game, leading all networks. A comparison to last year was not immediately available. ABC ranked second at 4.04 million, up 25% from last year, up 2% from 2019 and its most-watched season in four years. An updated average for FOX was not immediately available, but the network was averaging 3.90 million entering the Big Ten Championship Game (+5%). As previously reported, FOX “Big Noon Saturday” was the most-watched individual window of the season.

On the cable side, games averaged 1.73 million viewers on ESPN and 643,000 on ESPN2, up 16% and 65% respectively from last year. ESPN’s College Gameday averaged 1.88 million, not including this past weekend’s edition prior to Army-Navy, up 39% from last year.

Shifting to FCS playoff action, Saturday’s East Tennessee State-North Dakota State quarterfinal averaged a 1.1 and 1.77 million on ESPN — down a tick in ratings but up 2% in viewership from the comparable 2019 window (Illinois State-North Dakota State: 1.2, 1.74M). ESPN2 chipped in a 0.39 and 666,000 for Montana-James Madison the previous night, up 11% and 18% respectively from ’19 (Northern Iowa-James Madison: 0.35, 563K).