Fox’s broadcast of the Ohio State-Michigan game Saturday was a home run with 19 million average viewers, the largest number ever for a regular season college football game on that network. It is truly a staggering figure, higher than the average NFL broadcast and the highest on any network since 2011, a year when the TV audience was 40 to 50 percent larger than today.
It is also almost surely to stand as the high water mark for any regular-season college football game moving forward.
That’s because of the College Football Playoffs (CFB) 12-game bracket coming next year, as well as a conference realignment that eliminates divisions, meaning the top two teams will get to play in the conference championship. It is entirely possible that next November the OSU-Michigan dustup could be followed a week later by a standoff in the Big Ten Championship Game, and then a third time in the playoffs.
That would squelch some if not all of the pressure and urgency of this annual late November tussle, and not just in this contest. Across college football, the dynamic of racing for one of four golden tickets will dissipate, making for less appointment viewing, when top teams can afford to lose and still make the CFP. It also could eat into all the talking heads’ shows, as their arguments migrate to not whether an Alabama or a Texas is deserving of the last slot, but to the fight between teams ranked in the ten through 20 range for the final slots.
This is not to say overall college football TV viewership would go down. Lesser games would suddenly take on new meaning as eight more slots open up to the playoffs. And adding eight additional games to the playoffs will surely make up for any fall-off in regular season viewership.
“You might bring down Ohio State Michigan by 10%, but you’ll make it up on the first-round playoff games,” said sports media consultant Patrick Crakes. “People will say well, ‘I only did six and a half, eight million viewers (for a playoff game),’ but they don’t understand the reach factor and how most people don’t watch every game and everything. You’re gonna end up with more engagement, for sure.
“And you’re probably going to stand a good chance of getting a great championship game where you know, right now, because we only take four, some of these championship games have not been great, you do end up with some mismatches.”
Still, there is no denying that the suspense and thrill of most of this weekend’s championship games, while not gone, will lessen. The SEC final featuring Georgia vs. Alabama would not be a loser-go-home contest, while Oregon vs. Washington might have simply been round two out of three between the two Pac-12 schools.
The Sunday and Monday following the selection will no longer be pumped by debate on how top teams that were not selected should have made the final four. Instead, it will be the next rung down where the debate will reside. Debate about who got robbed of the 12th slot, or who didn’t get a bye but should have, just doesn’t have the same appeal as the arguments to break out this weekend.
As of today, ESPN will air the ‘24-25 CFP’s final three rounds, with the first round still up for bid (the top four teams receive a bye). The following years are also in the market.
As the standard bearer for college football coverage, ESPN is widely viewed as the frontrunner to capture long-term rights to the expanded CFP (though others are very interested). Whether that means the four games in the first round next year and later seasons is yet to be decided.
“I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to stand in their way,” Crakes said. “The one that this is the most core to, the one that can make the most with it is ESPN. Everyone else, even Fox has a lesser investment in college football, that they probably fully monetize already with the regular season stuff. If Fox were to get four games I’m not sure that that does a lot. Somebody was telling me, ‘Well, why won’t Apple spend on all these?’ I’m like, what does this do for Apple, it’s like, even if they had it, unless they have the whole thing exclusively these are like a couple games.
“ESPN can put forth a number that meets the CFP’s expectations, probably at the bottom end of it, and they can monetize it properly. But it’s also clear to me that people are putting in bids because they feel they have to. And while they look terrific the economics aren’t right….I don’t know what ESPN’s bid is. But my personal opinion is that they either end up with most of this or that, you know, they can put two of these games on ESPN Plus, they definitely need to try to figure something out. I mean, it’s like they can use this.”
About Daniel Kaplan
Daniel Kaplan has been covering the business of sports for more than two decades. A proud founding reporter of SportsBusiness Journal, he spent the last four years at The Athletic.