The all SEC championship game did not hurt ratings

[HooahVol]

Alabama and ESPN both have a lot to celebrate.
The Alabama Crimson Tide's thrilling 26 to 23 overtime victory on Monday over the Georgia Bulldogs in the college football playoff's national championship game averaged 28.4 million viewers across its MegaCast production on ESPN, ESPN 2 and ESPNU, the network announced on Tuesday.

That's a 13% bump from last year's championship game, which was another last second nail-biter in which the Clemson Tigers beat Alabama for the title.

Monday's game brought in 27.4 million on ESPN alone, which is up 12% from last year's telecast.

The sports network has now televised all ten of the most-watched cable telecasts in history, including Ohio State's victory over Oregon in the first ever college football playoff championship in 2015, a game that claimed the largest audience in cable history. ESPN has televised 18 of the top 20 most-watched cable telecasts.

Monday night's barn burner -- which took place at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia -- had an audience peak of 30.7 million late in the first half.

A staggering 28.4 million people stayed up to watch Alabama score the winning touchdown in overtime at 12:10 a.m. EST.

"The record-breaking audiences, over the course of multiple years, clearly reinforce how the College Football Playoff has quickly established itself as an elite event on the sports calendar," Burke Magnus, ESPN's executive vice president of programming and scheduling, said in a statement.

Overall, this year's three game college football playoff was up 21% from last year for ESPN.

CNNMoney (New York)
First published January 9, 2018: 5:31 PM ET

I thought there may be a drop in viewership but I was wrong. The nation tuned in for a SEC rematch after all.

 

[TrueOrange]

How did it compare to the first Alabama - Georgia game at the end of the 2015 season?

 

[SandoVOL]

What blows my mind is that espn gets to brodcast the championship game on subscription television. More and more people giving up their tv package I see these numbers falling off or being bloated over the next few seasons.

 

[HooahVol]

I agree. I actually think the well of money for college football may be drying up unless ESPN, Fox Sports and the networks figure out how to monetize and police online streaming. With Sling, Sony, Youutube and it sounds like Apple getting into the live streaming game I bet cable companies become a thing of the past.

As evidence that the money is no longer there look at all the layoffs ESPN has had over the past two years.

 

[bamawriter]

What blows my mind is that espn gets to brodcast the championship game on subscription television. More and more people giving up their tv package I see these numbers falling off or being bloated over the next few seasons.

College football is ESPN's bell cow.

And the ratings will likely stay fairly consistent, as cord-cutters tend to be viewers that don't watch sports. The playoff has produced massive ratings for ESPN (the biggest in cable television history), during the same years that ESPN has lost a ton of subscribers due to cord cutting.

 

[SandoVOL]

College football is ESPN's bell cow.

And the ratings will likely stay fairly consistent, as cord-cutters tend to be viewers that don't watch sports. The playoff has produced massive ratings for ESPN (the biggest in cable television history), during the same years that ESPN has lost a ton of subscribers due to cord cutting.

the viewship numbers are interesting, people who cancel their sports packages but end up at sports bars with all the games on, how are those numbers factored in? All i can speak for is myself and my family, sports package free for 5 years

 

[bamawriter]

the viewship numbers are interesting, people who cancel their sports packages but end up at sports bars with all the games on, how are those numbers factored in? All i can speak for is myself and my family, sports package free for 5 years

Communal viewing has been factored in for a couple of decades, but I won't pretend to know how that math works.

 

[05_never_again]

What blows my mind is that espn gets to brodcast the championship game on subscription television. More and more people giving up their tv package I see these numbers falling off or being bloated over the next few seasons.

They entered into this agreement to air the CFP before "cord cutting" went mainstream.

 

[05_never_again]

I agree. I actually think the well of money for college football may be drying up unless ESPN, Fox Sports and the networks figure out how to monetize and police online streaming.

That's a problem for the cable companies, not college football. The cable companies are enormous companies and dinosaurs. It takes a long time to turn the ship around, but they will do so and are in the process of doing so. Sling, DirectTV Now, etc. are various "sort of" a la carte options. As time goes on I suspect there will eventually be true a la carte options, where you could create your own cable "package" that might consist of just a few channels.

If you're a college football fan, you'll probably want access to your conference's TV network, so you'll pay for it and keep the money rolling in for the sport.

ESPN is struggling because of cord cutting, not because sports is less popular. By a variety of accounts sports is just as popular as ever. How people consume it is different.

 

[HooahVol]

I have to admit I only have DirectTV for sports. For enjoyment I use Amazon Prime, Youtube and Netflix. Now that I am seeing I can get ESPN streaming I will most likely drop DirectTV. (In Farragut I can get the networks over the air on a HD antennae.)