College Football Playoff semifinal viewership down from last year

College Football Playoff semifinal viewership was down big in the second year of the expanded playoff. So far, two of the three CFP rounds have seen ratings decreases from last year.

On Thursday, Miami–Ole Miss averaged 15.8 million viewers in the Fiesta Bowl. That’s down 11% from Penn State–Notre Dame (17.8 million) in the Orange Bowl in the same window last year.

Friday, Oregon–Indiana averaged 18.0 million viewers in the Peach Bowl. That’s down 16% from Texas–Ohio State (20.9 million) in the Cotton Bowl last year.

Notably, these declines are occurring despite comparisons between Nielsen’s new Big Data measurement and last year’s panel-based measurements. Big Data has generally resulted in increased viewership for sports this year, meaning that the decreases are likely larger, all things considered.

The lack of name-brand schools likely had a significant effect on viewership this year. The most-watched games in the quarterfinals featured Alabama in the Rose Bowl and Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl. Neither school played in the semifinals.

But the date of the games may also be significant. The only quarterfinal that didn’t outdraw the semifinals was Oregon–Texas Tech in the Orange Bowl (15.9 million), a 23–0 blowout.

The New Year’s games did fare better last year, with only Ohio State–Oregon in the Cotton Bowl (21.1 million) outdrawing that year’s semifinals. However, the difference in semifinal and quarterfinal viewership is much less than the difference in viewership between the NFL’s conference semifinals (37.1 million average viewers last year) and the Conference Championship games (50.7 million viewers).

As ESPN and the College Football Playoff continue to look for ways to tweak the schedule and format of the postseason going forward, it’s worth wondering if finding a way to move the semifinals back to New Year’s Day would make sense from a viewership perspective.

Overall, the College Football Playoff is averaging 16.8 million viewers across all three rounds, about the same as last year.