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Even though it featured two of college football’s biggest brands, Monday night’s national championship game didn’t attract as large a TV audience as it usually does.
Alabama’s 52-24 victory over Ohio drew an audience of 18.7 million viewers, the lowest of any National Championship game since the National Championship game began with the Bowl Championship Series in 1998.
The National Championship game also drew fewer viewers than Ohio State’s Sugar Bowl victory over Clemson (19.1 million) and Alabama’s Rose Bowl over Notre Dame (18.9 million), despite being the most watched non-NFL sporting event of the past year. as the semifinals of the college football playoffs.
Monday night’s showdown between #GoBuckeyes & #RollTide recorded 18.7 million viewers on ESPN’s MegaCast coverage
the @CFBPlayoff semi-finals and championships are the best cable shows and best non-NFL sporting events on any network since 2020 #National Championship pic.twitter.com/IEqUpMj2bx
– ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) January 12, 2021
Previously, the least-watched national championship game came at the end of the 2004 season, when USC blew Oklahoma 55-19 in the last game of the season.
Monday night’s lower-than-usual TV ratings were likely the result of a combination of factors. TV odds fell across all sports during the COVID-19 pandemic – for example, odds for the NFL playoff round fell 22% last weekend – and the lopsided nature of Monday’s game n certainly didn’t help. And while the state of Ohio and Alabama are typically big audience draws due to their huge fans, TV ratings could be an indicator of national fatigue watching these teams in the CFP.
The semi-finals scoring higher than the national championship game probably stemmed in part from those games played on a statutory holiday – New Years Day – rather than a Monday night, but previous national league games dating back to the BCS were also contested on Monday.
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