Last week we talked about the weekly College Football Rankings show perhaps not doing the committee any favors in selecting the Top 4 teams in the sport. The task of having to produce rankings each and every week brings increased scrutiny to the committee and opens up their work to every possible inquisition.
So why produce weekly rankings? Why turn the work of the college football playoff committee into a weekly miniseries drama? Why not just wait till the end of the season like the NCAA Tournament? Naturally, the answer is quite simple.
Ratings.
The College Football Rankings show that airs on ESPN Tuesday nights has brought a significant boost to Bristol’s primetime rankings, even surpassing some live sports.
Through four weeks of the program, the College Football Rankings show has averaged an impressive 1.04 million viewers. Even that high number comes with a caveat. Last week’s show was moved to ESPN2 due to college basketball and only averaged 523,000 viewers. That dip is in line with other programs that move from the mothership to the deuce. Taking that show out and looking at the prior 3 weeks that aired on ESPN, the rankings show has averaged a healthy 1.2 million viewers.
That figure is almost double what ESPN averaged the four weeks prior between airings of SportsCenter and college football studio shows – 677,500 viewers. Even more incredible, the 1.2 million viewers on ESPN beats some live sports that have aired on the network. On Tuesday September 23rd, ESPN aired Orioles-Yankees (the first game of Derek Jeter’s final homestand) that mustered 888,000 viewers. Even the college football rankings show beats regular season baseball.
The success of a studio show can often be measured by how much it might increase or decrease versus lead-in programming. It’s in that regard where we can see just how powerful the weekly college football playoff rankings are as a television event. The weekly rankings show is up 362,250 viewers on average over the first month from the lead-in episode of SportsCenter.
From a practicality standpoint, the weekly rankings show may not be best for college football. But it’s more than pulling its weight in moving the weekly drama to new heights.
Ratings data via AA’s Douglas Pucci.
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