It just means more. That’s not a slogan; it’s a fact.
On Thursday, Nielsen published its mid-season report of the most-watched games and teams in college football this season. The SEC, through its partnership with ESPN, has been a ratings behemoth.
According to the data, ABC has won 20 of 24 total national Saturday windows through the first 8 weeks of the 2025 season, per Awful Announcing. Those slots (noon ET, 3:30 p.m. ET, and primetime) have belonged to SEC schools so far. And 7 of the 10 most-watched teams in America are SEC programs.
The top 10 is below, per Awful Announcing:
- Alabama (7.92 million viewers)
- Tennessee (7.80 million)
- Georgia (7.60 million)
- Texas (6.88 million)
- Oklahoma (6.29 million)
- LSU (6.14 million)
- Ohio State (6.11 million)
- Miami (5.60 million)
- Florida (5.15 million)
- Notre Dame (5.00 million)
ESPN and the SEC are in Year 2 of their landscape-altering 10-year deal.
In Week 8, the 3 most-watched games in college football were the 3 ABC games. Ole Miss-Georgia drew 9.8 million viewers. The Alabama-Tennessee game drew 8 million. The LSU-Vanderbilt matchup drew 5.9 million.
Per The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel, there have been 27 games so far this season that drew at least 5 million viewers.
ABC/ESPN owned 21 of those games.
While the Big Ten’s deal with FOX, CBS, and NBC fetched more money for the league and its partners than the SEC deal with ESPN, it’s abundantly clear that the league with the most sway in college football is still the SEC.
Things will likely look the same in Week 9 as well. The only 3 matchups in college football this weekend that feature ranked teams on both sides are SEC games. Two of the 3 are on ABC. Alabama, the largest draw in the country right now, faces South Carolina on ABC in the mid-day slot.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
