Inaugural College Football Playoff brings plenty of interest for ESPN

The first College Football Playoff has certainly raised awareness of the sport and with the weekly rankings of the top four teams all the way through last Sunday’s Selection Show, it has brought a lot of interest (a.k.a. ratings) for ESPN.

For the first Selection Show, ESPN averaged a 1.5 rating and 2.2 million viewers for the entire show which lasted 2½ hours (12:30 — 3 p.m. ET). In the first half-hour when the four teams for the College Football Playoff was announced, the show averaged a 3.4 overnight rating which according to our Douglas Pucci would translate to about 5 to 5.5 million million total viewers.

By comparison to the NCAA Tournament Selection Show on CBS earlier this year, Doug gives us some more numbers: “On March 16, the CBS NCAA show drew a 4.2 overnight, 2.167 million for the show. Then later that night, ESPN’s 2-hour College Gamenight (7-9 pm) drew 2.096 million total viewers.”

For the first half-hour of the CFB Playoff Selection Show, the top ten local markets included some that were directly affected by the selections:

1. Columbus (15.3)
2. Birmingham, (10.7)
3. Dayton (8.3)
4. Cleveland (7.5)
5. Jacksonville (6.9)
6. Greenville (6.5)
7. Atlanta (6.3)
8. Tampa-St. Pete (6.1)
9. Orlando (5.8)
10. Knoxville (5.4)

Thanks to weekly programs ranking the top four teams for the college football playoff through the Selection show, it gave plenty of fodder for fans and increased interest. One could argue that the interest led to bigger ratings across-the-board for ESPN’s college football games.

When you think about it, ESPN has to be pleased over the reaction to the College Football Playoff and how it led to fans debating on their team’s merits to be included in the top four spots. Now the next step is to see how many people will watch the College Football Playoff semifinals and National Championship game. We can expect those numbers to be high.

[Sports Media Watch]