2015 college football season viewership up across ESPN’s networks

The 2015 college football regular season is in the books, and the viewership for ESPN’s family of networks was largely trending upward.

The five rated ESPN networks that aired games this season (ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and ESPNEWS) averaged 1.852 million viewers, up 4% from the 2014 season (1.776 million viewers). Also, the games that aired on ESPN averaged 2.721 million viewers, up 2% from 2014 (2.660 million), marking the fourth straight year for a viewership rise on ESPN.

Over on ABC, a total of 41 game windows averaged 4.979 million viewers. The total viewership was down 2% from 2014, but up 4% from 2013. Also, the 41 windows was an all-time high for ABC, up from 34 last season. However, despite averaging a strong 5.340 million viewers, ABC’s Saturday Night Football was down 14% from 2014 (6.197 million viewers) and down 7% from 2013 (5.750 million).

It was also a great year for WatchESPN, which is seemingly something we’re saying after every major season concludes. The five most-watched games of the year on WatchESPN, and nine of the top ten, took place this season, led by Ohio State-Virginia Tech, Michigan State-Michigan, and Florida-LSU. The average minute impressions per game were up 54% from 2014, while the total minutes viewed per game were up 53% and the total unique viewers were up 38%.

I think the big takeaway from all of this is that more and more people are streaming games through WatchESPN. The 4% increase across the family of networks and 2% increase on ESPN aren’t much to think about, but seeing the total unique WatchESPN viewers going up by 38%? That’s significant, and is something worth keeping an eye on through the college basketball season as well. If these numbers keep going up, could we end up eventually seeing a WatchESPN standalone package?

[ESPN]