TV ratings are down across the board for most sports and, heck, most of any form of televised entertainment these days. As our culture becomes more fragmented, so, too, do the ways we choose to consume in-home entertainment. And college football is not immune to that.
Sports Illustrated‘s Richard Deitsch compiled ratings for the major college football TV packages with the help of Sports Business Journal‘s Austin Karp, and here’s what he found:CBS: 4.951 million viewers, down 10% from 5.489 million in 2016.
ABC: 4.203 million, down 18% from 5.097 million.
Fox: 3.625 million, up 23% from 2.951 million.
NBC: 2.742, down 3% from 2.814 million.
ESPN: 2.155 million, down 6% from 2.300 million.
FS1: 819,000, up 4% from 743,000.
However, this is not a doom-and-gloom report for college football. The pie isn’t shrinking, it’s just being cut into even smaller slices.
“I don’t think that meant less interest in college football,” Karp told SI. “If anything, I’d say the interest was higher this season compared to some prior years. If you look at total minutes viewed for college football, it had to be some sort of record this year.”
With the College Football Playoff returning to New Year’s Day this fall, expect many stories about how TV ratings were up for college football’s 2017-18 postseason. For the record, the last time the Rose and Sugar bowls held the semifinals, the Rose Bowl drew 28.2 million and the Sugar Bowl 28.3 million.