Indiana and Miami delivered a classic to the college football world on Monday night at Hard Rock Stadium, and all of that drama delivered in the ratings department, too.
According to Nielsen, the Hoosiers’ 27-21 victory over the Hurricanes was the 2nd-most-watched College Football Playoff national championship game ever. It was also the most-watched college football game since the 2014-15 season, which is a lot of games ago.
That was hardly all. The matchup for all the marbles that came down to the final minute was the 2nd-most-watched cable telecast on record.
It was also the most-viewed non-NFL sports event since Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, which is saying something, since that was the memorable night when the Chicago Cubs broke their 108-year championship curse and beat the Cleveland Indians in an extra-inning thriller.
The Indiana-Miami classic raked in 30.1 million viewers, with 33.2 million viewers at its peak. It truly was an incredible ending to the 2025 college football season, and the ratings blockbuster that it produced on the ESPN MegaCast backed up that claim.
Not only did the title game pull in huge ratings, the 2nd year of the expanded 12-team Playoff format was a ratings boom as a whole. Across all 11 games of the 2025-26 Playoff, the CFP averaged 16.3 million viewers, which was a 4% increase year-over-year over last season’s Playoff.
In total, there were 37 billion minutes consumed, which was also up 4% year-over-year.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
