This year’s CFP National Championship between Ohio State and Notre Dame saw a drop in viewership from last year. On average, the game had 22.1 million viewers, a 12% drop from last season’s matchup between the Michigan Wolverines and Washington Huskies.
It was the first year of the 12-team playoff with two of the largest sports brands, but it didn’t result in more people tuning in. Despite the fall-off in viewers from games in years past, the Buckeyes’ 34-23 win over the Fighting Irish was still the highest-watched college football game of the year.
After ten years with a four-team playoff, the 2024 season was the first that saw an extended postseason with 12 teams vying for a chance at winning the national championship. In years past, a majority of teams with one or two losses were immediately out of contention.
In the case of Ohio State losing to Michigan or Notre Dame losing to Northern Illinois, they usually wouldn’t have made a four-team playoff. However, the new format allowed teams to enter the postseason without a perfect resume. This resulted in a more exciting regular season in college football, with one loss not ending a team’s season right then and there.
Along with giving big-name schools like Penn State, Georgia, and Notre Dame a chance, the 12-team playoff also gave hope to lesser-known programs like Arizona State, SMU, and Indiana. The new format meant that more people around the country were paying attention to college football, not just the same few fanbases from the same top teams every year.
Even though many fans weren’t happy with the seeding and path to victory for specific teams, just as a concept, the new playoff format worked perfectly, not only did it result in more eyes on the sport, but it also allowed for more conversation and overall discourse to be had throughout the season.
The one downside to the new format was that more playoff games meant a change to the sports calendar. For the entirety of the four-team CFP format, and even before then, the national championship game came in early January. It allowed the college season to close out just as the NFL playoffs ramped up.
Yes, college football is very popular, but it will never rival the popularity of the NFL, and the two happened to collide this year. It also doesn’t help college football that the NFL saw four stimulating divisional-round games over the weekend. However, the playoff committee chose to go up against the beast that is professional football in America.
This year’s national championship was played at a later date than ever, and it didn’t help viewership numbers. With the NFL playoffs in full swing, the average sports fan wasn’t used to tuning in on a Monday night that fell on a national holiday and presidential inauguration. It looks like it was bad luck for so many things to be going on, but the CFP committee took that risk. Despite the mega-brands of both schools and the storylines of Ryan Day and Marcus Freeman both going for their first championship, the country wasn’t extremely interested in the game.
With 2024 being the first year of this new playoff format, it is fair to say that things aren’t set in stone. There have already been rumors about changing the seeding format, and maybe changing the schedule of these games could help, too. In previous years, like in 2023, the championship game featured teams from different parts of the country.
With Ohio State and Notre Dame, the teams are 250 miles apart this year. The regionality of the game with teams from the Midwest could have also been a factor in the lack of viewership, as it was one of only a few occasions that didn’t see an SEC team in the title.
On average, 22.1 million people watched the 2024 national championship game, a 12% drop from the 25 million that watched Michigan beat Washington last year. Since the implementation of the CFP, Monday night’s championship game saw the third-lowest ratings, only beating the 2022 game in which Georgia demolished TCU and Alabama’s win over OSU in the 2020 season.
Despite the Buckeye’s last two appearances in the season’s final game having lower-than-average viewership, their 2014 win over Oregon remains the most-watched CFP game in history, with 33.9 million people tuning in.
Even with the drop, the 12-team playoff proved that more games means more viewers. The first round of games averaged about 10 million viewers, and the second round with nearly 17 million viewers. That is around 100 million more eyes on college football than there would have been in years past.
The 2024 national championship game was still the most-watched college football game of the season, easily beating out the SEC championship that saw Georgia defeat Texas, averaging 16.6 million viewers.
There are a few reasons why this year’s CFP championship saw a drop in viewership. It could have been the new playoff format, resulting in a later date for the game. It could have been the regionality of the game and the fact that both teams are very close to each other on a national scale. It could have been running into the middle of the NFL playoffs or the different events in the country.
Most notably, it also could have been the quality of the game. Ohio State went up 21-7 early, and by halftime, they looked like their lead would only grow. Yes, the Irish did mount a comeback to give themselves a chance, but it was too late, and people had lost interest. In all honesty, it was likely a combination of all of these factors that resulted in the drop in viewership, but not every game can be Texas vs. USC in the 2006 Rose Bowl.
Regardless, this year’s CFP games accounted for nine of the ten most-watched college games this season. College football remains the second-most watched sport in the country behind the NFL, and 22 million people is still a crazy number. Due to multiple factors, people didn’t watch the game, but that won’t decrease the popularity of college football.
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