Alabama’s burst victory over Ohio State on Monday night was the least-watched national championship game in College Football playoff history.
ESPN said on Tuesday that 18.7 million people watched the game on various ESPN platforms. It’s a lot of people, of course. But it’s also more than six million people less than watched LSU win Clemson for the national title on January 13, 2020.
The number of people who watched the game on Monday night is also less than the number of people who watched each of the semifinals on January 1. ESPN said that approximately 19.2 million people watched the Ohio State Sugar Bowl beat Clemson, while 18.8 million people watched the Rose Bowl win over Notre Dame.
It is the first time in the history of the playoffs that the title game had fewer viewers than the semifinals. And according to Sports Media Watch, it is the least viewed national championship game since BCS started.
The relatively low number of people watching the championship game limits an unsurprising television viewing season for college football. The sport was not spared the declines in spectators that impacted most major sports in its 2020 seasons.
Ratings dropped at all college football conferences as teams played truncated schedules because of the coronavirus pandemic. The most watched regular season game of the year came in November, when Notre Dame defeated Clemson in double overtime. The November 7 game took place on the same day that President-elect Joe Biden’s presidential election was called, and NBC even interrupted the broadcast to show Biden’s victory speech.
Assuming that the audience that ESPN tweeted on Tuesday night is the final number, it is very disappointing for the network. Alabama and Ohio State are seen as two of college football’s biggest draws, although the Crimson Tide was an 8.5-point favorite and ended up winning by 28 points. It is indisputable that the audience would be larger if the game were competitive in the second half.
The highest rated CFP title game was in 2015
Monday night’s game was the seventh title game of the College Football Playoff era and its audience was just over half that of the first CFP game.
The inaugural game of the National College Football Playoff championship between Oregon and Ohio State drew 34.6 million viewers while people were eager to watch a college football playoff for the first time.
The audience for the second game of the CFP title has shrunk by eight million and has remained relatively stable since then. Before Monday night, the least-watched championship game came when 25.3 million people watched Clemson beat Alabama in a thriller in 2017.
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