ESPN has announced ratings for all 4 first-round College Football Playoff games.
Collectively, the 4 games averaged 10.6 million viewers according to ESPN. The network says that figure is higher than the non-CFP New Year’s Six bowls in 2023-24 as well as this year’s conference championship games. The weekend also resulted in the 2 highest-rated college football games ever broadcast on TNT.
Tennessee-Ohio State led the way with 14.3 million viewers in the primetime spot on ESPN and ABC. It ended up not being a close game, but the Buckeyes’ triumph over Tennessee still proved to be a near-record-breaker — it was the second most-watched college football game of the 2024 season, per ESPN.
Notre Dame’s win over Indiana drew the second-biggest audience of the weekend in the primetime Friday night time slot. At 13.4 million viewers, it was the third most-watched college football game of the season, per the network.
The Clemson vs. Texas game garnered 8.6 million viewers and is the most-watched college football game ever broadcast on TNT. It’s also the most-watched December sports/entertaining program on TNT/TBS/truTV in the last 23 years, per the network.
SMU-Penn State was played in the afternoon time slot on Saturday and proved to be the least-watched CFP game of the weekend. However, it still drew 6.4 million viewers on TNT and MAX. The broadcast peaked at 7.9 million viewers.
The quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff will begin on New Year’s Eve.
Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
