The SEC’s domination of the college football landscape isn’t exactly a secret, but the degree to which the SEC wipes the floor with other conferences on television is staggering. And this isn’t just an ESPN thing either – for the sixth straight season, the SEC on CBS was the highest-rated regular season college football package on all networks.
The package averaged a 4.0 rating for the season, which is actually an 11% drop from 2013. ABC’s Saturday Night Football averaged a 3.8, while ABC’s entire schedule of 34 games averaged a 3.2. The numbers put together by CBS are more impressive when you consider that they didn’t air the Iron Bowl for the first time in seven years. That game drew an insane 7.4 rating and 13.5 million viewers on ESPN, the most-watched game of the year.
The SEC on CBS added five games of the top ten most viewed of the year, including the Alabama-Missouri SEC Championship game (which drew a 7.8 rating and 12.8 million viewers). However, considering that five of the top nine most-watched games of the year featured Alabama, maybe its less of an “SEC DOMINATION”, and more of a Crimson Tide domination.
It’s worth noting that Florida State was involved in four of the top eight most-watched games on ABC, perhaps further signifying that fans will simply watch the best teams in the most appealing games, rather than being betrothed to a conference through good times and bad.
[CBS]
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