ESPN Cable TV Ratings for National Title Game Drop 15%

Even though last night’s game was a hard-fought battle that remained in the balance until well into the fourth quarter, the ratings for cable TV powerhouse ESPN dropped 15% for the College Football Playoff National Championship Game this year. The game garnered a 15.8 overnight rating on television with a combined rating of 16.0 with television viewers and those streaming online added together.

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The ratings drop wasn’t nearly as precipitous as ESPN’s for the College Football Playoff semifinal games held on New Year’s Eve. The overnight ratings for those broadcasts were down more than 36% from the prior year.

ESPN reported record-high numbers for a non-World Cup contest on its WatchESPNapp. The network reported more than 1.9 million unique viewers via the app, 500,000 more unique viewers compared to last year’s title game between Oregon and Ohio State.

ESPN and sponsors are pushing the College Football Playoff to abandon New Year’s Eve semifinal games. Currently, the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Ariz., and the Peach Bowl in Atlanta are scheduled for Dec. 31.

Another factor that could possibly have worked against the title game was that it occurred a full 12 days after the semifinal, right after an exciting NFL Wild Card Weekend that may have stolen some of the thunder of the ultimate college football event. With highly-rated NFL games on Saturday and Sunday, viewers may have just been overdosed on football, and no longer pumped about the potential of an epic title game after such a long wait.

On the other hand, the streaming numbers can be seen as a win for that aspect of the business. If it continues to grow, ESPN and its family of networks may not need to worry as much about the television ratings in the future.

College Football Playoff Cable TV Ratings Plummet Due to New Year’s Eve Scheduling

New Year’s Eve is a time to party, and New Year’s Day is a time to watch college football. The NCAA tried to change that paradigm this year, scheduling both College Football Playoff Semifinals for New Year’s Eve, and as a result, the cable TV ratings dropped 38.5% from last year for one game and 44.5% for the other, a catastrophic result for a group of people trying to “redefine” what people do on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.

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The dramatic matchups and results of last year’s first College Football Playoff semifinals led to record-breaking cable audiences for ESPN.

Those games included a face-off between Heisman Trophy winning quarterbacksMarcus Mariota and Jameis Winston in the Rose Bowl. Ohio State and Alabama, two of the most popular programs in college football, played a game that went down to the final play. Ohio State upset the Crimson Tide 42-35.

Those games represented the biggest cable TV audiences ever, until the first playoff championship game with Oregon-Ohio State topped it with 33 million viewers.

The matchups of this year’s games weren’t as attractive and both turned out to be lopsided. Clemson beat Oklahoma 37-17, pulling away in the second half. Alabama routed Michigan State 38-0 in a game that was pretty much over midway through the third quarter.

But the biggest difference was the day the games were played.

As of right now, next season’s playoff games are also set to be played on New Year’s Eve, but maybe the NCAA will learn from their mistake for once and actually listen to the fans who want to have it both ways—New Year’s Eve to party, and New Year’s Day to recover in front of the TV watching the best college football has to offer.

College Football Ratings Up This Labor Day: 144% Better than Last Year

This Labor Day, the number one college football team in the nation, the Ohio State Buckeyes, took on the Virginia Tech Hokies to close out the first weekend of college football for this year’s regular season. This matchup came in at 144% over last year’s Labor Day matchup, and gave ESPN the highest overnight rating for an opening weekend college football game since 2010 across all networks, even though ESPN is a cable TV channel and many games are on broadcast networks like CBS.

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Additionally, the much anticipated matchup is the most-streamed college football regular-season game on WatchESPN of all time. Across all devices, the Ohio State victory had an average minute audience of 194,000 users and a total of 708,000 unique viewers on WatchESPN, accumulating 41,900,000 million minutes viewed throughout the game. Each category is an increase from the November, 29, 2014 Iron Bowl featuring Auburn at Alabama — which held the previous best in each category —  by 63%, (119,000 users) 49%, (475,000 unique viewers) and 43% (29,300,000 live minutes), respectively.

Many have discussed a lessening of ESPN’s power in the cable TV universe, but as long as the channels has marquee sporting events carried live, there will always be a place for it. That they had a record number of people streaming the game also shows that they are willing to adapt, and that live rights for sporting events are still a big deal.

More for Cord Cutters: CBS to Stream College Football Lineup

This Saturday, college football begins in earnest, bringing a close to a long offseason and plenty of fan withdrawals. Good news for cord cutters this year, especially those who follow teams in the SEC: CBS will be streaming its entire college football lineup, including the 17 game SEC schedule beginning this Saturday with the annual Kickoff Game in Atlanta between Louisville and Auburn.

Online football watchers do not need to have a cable TV or satellite TV ID in order to watch the games, as they do not require authentication on CBSSports.com or the CBS mobile app and CBS tablet app. As a bonus for those watching online, there’s an online-only pregame show featuring Teryn Schaefer, Matthew Coca, and Brady Quinn. The team will also analyze the game at halftime and provide postgame coverage.

Here’s the schedule, via Awful Announcing:

Sept. 5	3:30 PM	LOUISVILLE vs. AUBURN (Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game)
Sept. 12	3:30 PM	GEORGIA at VANDERBILT
Sept. 19	3:30 PM	AUBURN at LSU
Sept. 26	3:30 PM	SEC GAME OF THE WEEK
Oct. 3	3:30 PM	SEC GAME OF THE WEEK
Oct. 10	3:30 PM	SEC GAME OF THE WEEK
Oct. 17	3:30 PM	SEC GAME OF THE WEEK
Oct. 24	3:30 PM	SEC GAME OF THE WEEK
Oct. 31	3:30 PM	FLORIDA vs. GEORGIA
Nov. 7	3:30 PM 8:00 PM	SEC GAME OF THE WEEK #1 SEC GAME OF THE WEEK #2
Nov. 14	12:00 NOON 3:30 PM	SEC GAME OF THE WEEK #1 SEC GAME OF THE WEEK #2
Nov. 21	3:30 PM	SEC GAME OF THE WEEK
Nov. 27(Fri)	2:30 PM	MISSOURI at ARKANSAS
Nov. 28	3:30 PM	SEC GAME OF THE WEEK
Dec. 5	4:00 PM	SEC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME

Get ready for kickoff!