TV Ratings: Expanded College Football Playoff Gets Off to Solid Start

The opening round of the expanded College Football Playoff didn’t produce any classic games, but it did bring in sizable TV audiences.

Friday and Saturday’s four first-round games averaged 10.6 million viewers on ABC, ESPN and TNT Sports, with the two primetime contests (Tennessee at Ohio State on Saturday and Indiana at Notre Dame on Friday) drawing the second- and third-most viewers of any college football contest this season.

There’s no real like-for-like comparison for the four CFP games this year to prior years, as in the past the playoff featured only four teams. ESPN notes, however, that the four games averaged more viewers than the non-CFP New Year’s bowls after the 2023 season (8.14 million) and also topped the average this year’s four major conference championship games (10 million).

Ohio State’s 42-17 win over Tennessee Saturday night drew the biggest TV audience of the first round with 14.3 million viewers on ESPN and ABC. Notre Dame’s 27-17 win over Indiana on Friday night posted 13.4 million viewers; they trail only the Dec. 7 SEC championship game (16.6 million viewers) among all college football telecasts this season.

TNT Sports had the two daytime games on Saturday, as part of a sublicensing deal with rightsholder ESPN, scoring the two most-watched college football games ever for the outlet (TNT resumed airing college games this year for the first time since 2006). The Texas-Clemson game (a 38-24 win for Texas) brought in 8.6 million viewers in the late afternoon, and Penn State’s 38-10 blowout of SMU averaged 6.4 million in the noon ET spot.

ESPN will air the remaining rounds of the playoff, leading up to the national championship game on Jan. 20. Last year’s semifinals averaged about 23.3 million viewers, and the title game drew 25.05 million.

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