College football’s new world order is unfolding before our eyes and on our screens. Although television viewership at the highest level is essentially unchanged compared to this point last season, the distribution of eyeballs has been completely reshaped by realignment.
The SEC and Big Ten are dominating the media market like they are dominating every other aspect of the sport.
In fact, it’s not even a two-conference race at this point. The SEC is blowing past the Big Ten in the ratings game, as well.
Using audience data provided by SportsMediaWatch, the Hotline examined the highest-rated games over the past three-and-a-half seasons — since the sport emerged from COVID.
We identified the games that have drawn at least five million viewers, which, ittedly, is a higher threshold than the networks themselves use (four million) to identify the biggest broadcasts.
To summarize three-and-a-half years into a few sentences:
There were 13 games with at least five million viewers through the first seven weeks of the 2021 season but only nine to that point in the fall of 2022. The downturn did not last, however. The first half of the 2023 season produced 18 games with at least five million viewers, and the same timeframe this year has generated 17 games at, or above, the threshold.
But the conference breakdown is different this fall, with SEC teams filling 20 of the 34 slots in those 17 high-viewership games. That’s 59 percent for a single conference.
The Big Ten is second with eight of the 34 slots, followed by the ACC with four and the Big 12 and Notre Dame with one each.
Last year, there was balance.
The SEC filled just 10 of the 36 slots (across 18 games), while the Pac-12 — aided by the early-season Colorado craze — also occupied 10 slots. The ACC followed with five, the Big 12 and Notre Dame had four apiece, and the Big Ten had just two. (The 36th spot went to the Mountain West, for Colorado State’s appearance against Colorado.)
Even though the SEC added only two teams this year, Texas and Oklahoma, whereas the Big Ten added four, the viewership trend has moved decidedly to the land where “It just means more” — at least through seven weeks.
Granted, the broadcast networks and kickoff windows are critical in determining audience numbers.
But given that SEC conference games for seven of the 17 broadcasts that have drawn at least five million viewers — and that all of those games have been on ABC — it seems like Disney made the right move going all-in with the conference.
If you’re curious, here are the 17 games thus far that have drawn at least five million viewers.
(Note: SportsMediaWatch uses Nielsen data, which does not include streamers.)
11.99 million: Georgia-Alabama (ABC)
9.60 million: Ohio State-Oregon (NBC)
9.19 million: Texas-Michigan (Fox)
8.62 million: USC-LSU (ABC)
7.92 million: Notre Dame-Texas A&M (ABC)
7.63 million: Texas-Oklahoma (ABC)
7.58 million: Clemson-Georgia (ABC)
6.60 million: Georgia-Kentucky (ABC)
6.35 million: Miami-Florida (ABC)
6.32 million: USC-Michigan (CBS)
6.27 million: Tennessee-Oklahoma (ABC)
6.00 million: South Carolina-Alabama (ABC)
5.67 million: Colorado-Nebraska (NBC)
5.29 million: Tennessee-Arkansas (ABC)
5.04 million: Oklahoma-Auburn (ABC)
5.03 million: Alabama-Wisconsin (Fox)
5.00 million: Florida State-Georgia Tech (ESPN)
Notes and nuggets
• ESPN’s “College GameDay” drew an impressive audience of 2.3 million viewers for the Oct. 12 episode in Eugene ahead of the Oregon-Ohio State showdown. (Of note: The game was on NBC.) According to ESPN, the iconic pregame show is on pace for its highest-rated season.
• “GameDay” will set up shop in Austin this weekend for the Texas-Georgia duel while Fox’s “Big Noon Kickoff’ will broadcast from Bloomington, where Indiana hosts Nebraska. Last week, ‘Big Noon Kickoff’ was in Provo for the Brigham Young-Arizona game. Provo and Bloomington on back-to-back Saturdays — that was not on our pregame show bingo card this season. wne and Heidi Watney
