Irregardless of Inauguration Day, I hate that they play title games on Mondays in the first place. It should be on a Saturday night. I know it's for ratings, but it takes away from the pageantry of the game. I have little interest spending 3-4 hours on a Monday night to watch the game.
Buy or sell: NCAA messed up playing NC game on inauguration day.
- Thread starter thekimmer
- Start date
Too many teams, first round and some of the second were anticlimactic, mismatches. Best 8 teams and no one with 3 losses.
Totally lost focus after the first word********
If bowls would be more emphasized I might go with this. But have we ever finished top 8 after conference title weekend? Makes me think we’d never make playoff.
ETA: was 7 in 2014. Not very often. I was u see the impression we were about 10 but still.
This. I didn’t even know who made it to the NC. Now, I’ll end up causing a monologue on the podcast about State not having real fans….but there are other things in life that require my attention.
to the OP, buy. This year was shortsighted on the planning committee. It’s not like the inauguration was a surprise….
You’re calling for a 16 team playoff!? Hey, we could have a 24-team playoff just so people like you could rant about it not being a 36-team playoff. ThAt DidUnT WeRrrK, we need a 40 team playoff.….
That’s always been the beauty of football, you get one chance. It’d be too easy to just go to conference champs. But, you’re right….its not about football. It’s about the $$$ from TV. 17 the teams, 17 the schools, and 171717 the fans
They don’t take that long. Its like an hour.
Pretty sure that dubmass is just trolling. Any human being who watches ANYTHING on television for 12 hours straight needs to be fitted for a straight jacket. I don’t care what it is.
24 would actually more closely resemble the number of teams that make it in EVERY OTHER NCAA SPORT.
But I'm fine with 16, And no, there was never any "beauty" of the old bowl system of college football (not football in general - remember - no level of football operated like college).
And more teams getting in gives more fanbases hope. And that's what this is about. Nobody wants to watch Alabama and Ohio State or Clemson play every year. The 4-team playoff was the worst move in the history of college football, besides the immediate eligibility portal.
My wife, who pays no attention whatsoever, asked me "Shouldn't this have been over right after New Years?". They need to streamline it, cut back on regular season games, something...
College Football TV Ratings: ESPN draws huge viewership for Ohio State vs. Notre Dame national championship - On3
Still fewer viewers than last year.
22.1 million vs 25.05 million
Still fewer viewers than last year.
22.1 million vs 25.05 million
I think a lot of you guys are overestimating how much the general population cares about a presidential inauguration. I have never watched a presidential inauguration in my life, because who gives a ****? I didn’t watch the championship trophy presentation after the game. Same thing.
Are Friday nights not as good as holiday Mondays?
I wonder how ratings would be for a Friday night game? No NFL competition but has to be a season for Monday slot.
12% is pretty significant. I'm sure inauguration festivities ate into it a bit but not near the full 3 million.
I wonder how ratings would be for a Friday night game? No NFL competition but has to be a season for Monday slot.
I think part of it is also how each game developed. Last year’s game was close until Michigan pulled away in the 4th quarter. This year’s game was 31-7 right after halftime and never felt particularly close until late in the 4th.
Also, last year you had what was thought to be the ‘novelty’ of having no SEC teams.
I think the farther away you get from NYD, the less people are interested in college football. The final day of the CFB season for decades was NYD. With the start of the CFP, the final game moved back to the week after New Years, which was still ok, because it was only one extra week. But this year and I assume years in the future, the title game is three weeks after NYD. It’s right in the middle of college basketball season and the NFL playoffs. It’s just too late in the year. I think that is the biggest reason for the drop in viewership, not the inauguration.
I think there is just an element of random chance in these ratings. 2021 had Ohio State and Bama and drew one of the worst finals ratings in the CFP era at 19 million.
Last edited:
Patdog being patdog.
Yeah trying to fit 3 games in on a saturday is total the same as this.
Exactly my thoughts. That had to be the most pointless tweet of all time.
“Most watched non-NFL sporting event in the last year” So….most watched non-NFL game since last year’s championship game? No shít…..of course it was. Did anyone think the WNBA title game or Game 2 of the ALCS was going to top it or something?
“Most watched of all the CFP postseason games”. The NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP was somehow the most watched CFB postseason game? I’ll be damned.
So what do you suggest to not kill your ratings? Of course you could get it in by starting at noon Eastern. But that's 9AM for 55,000,000 potential viewers. You really want to try that? But if you play later, the NFL will crush your ratings. For context, when college playoff games went against NFL regular season games last month, the NFL drew 15.5M & 15.4M. College playoffs drew 6.4M & 8.6M, less than half what the other playoff games drew. And that was against regular season games.
but how many views did they get with adding the extra games? There were eleven plaoff games compared to 3 last year. I am willing to bet they more than made up for the drop off in the last game. There may be some fatigue, but they are more than making up for quality with quantity.
Here are the matchups and viewership numbers for the CFP since a playoff was introduced. Year is the 'season', not the year the game was actually played. Winner listed first:
All that to say, the post-Covid CFP national championship hasn't hit the numbers that pre-Covid CFP championship hit. One other interesting thing I found looking at this is that we never had a point spread higher than a touchdown before Covid. Since Covid, 3 of the 5 games have had a point spread of more than a touchdown (including this year's).
| Year | Matchup | Viewership | Spread | Differential | Notes |
| 2014 | Ohio State vs Oregon | 33.4 Million | Ore 5.5 | OSU 22 | First ever CFP |
| 2015 | Alabama vs Clemson | 26.18 Million | Bama 6.5 | Bama 5 | 40 pt combined 4th qtr |
| 2016 | Clemson vs Alabama | 26.03 Million | Bama 6.5 | Clem 4 | Last second game winning TD. |
| 2017 | Alabama vs Georgia | 28.44 Million | Bama 3.5 | Bama 3 | First All-SEC CFP, OT game |
| 2018 | Clemson vs Alabama | 25.28 Million | Bama 5 | Clem 28 | Blowout |
| 2019 | LSU vs Clemson | 25.59 Million | LSU 4.5 | LSU 17 | Joe Burrow season |
| 2020 | Alabama vs Ohio State | 18.71 Million | Bama 9.5 | Bama 28 | Covid season. Blowout |
| 2021 | Georgia vs Alabama | 22.6 Million | UGA 3 | UGA 15 | 0 TDs in first half. Bama only scored FGs. |
| 2022 | Georgia vs TCU | 16.6 Million | UGA 13.5 | UGA 58 | HUGE Blowout |
| 2023 | Michigan vs Washington | 25.1 Million | Mich 4.5 | Mich 21 | no SEC for 1st time since 2014 |
| 2024 | Ohio State vs Notre Dame | 22.1 Million | OSU 8.5 | OSU 11 | MLK Day, Inauguration |
All that to say, the post-Covid CFP national championship hasn't hit the numbers that pre-Covid CFP championship hit. One other interesting thing I found looking at this is that we never had a point spread higher than a touchdown before Covid. Since Covid, 3 of the 5 games have had a point spread of more than a touchdown (including this year's).
Hmm. When accounting for population increases over the past decade, that chart could be used to make quite the argument for a pronounced decline in the popularity of college football in general since 2014.
Which is perhaps a good and hopeful thing, because it totally 17ing sucks now.
Get unlimited access today.