CFP final scores second lowest tv ratings of all time
https://twitter.com/slmandel/status/1481021231776374784?s=21
Only the 2020 game with a 15% capacity Covid crowd scored worse ratings
CFP title game viewership by year
2014 Ohio St-Oregon: 34.6M
2015 Bama-Clemson: 26.7M
2016 Clemson-Bama: 26.0M
2017 Bama-UGA: 28.4M
2018 Bama-Clemson: 25.3M
2019 LSU-Clemson: 26.9M
2020 Bama-Ohio State: 18.7M
2021 UGA-Bama: 22.6M
January 11th, 2022 at 5:53 PM ^
Good playoff seeding strategy, playoff committee and ESPN!
January 11th, 2022 at 10:39 PM ^
I’m all for hating the committee and ESPN but don’t see how they could have seeded it differently in such a way that would have addressed any of the issues in any meaningful and fair way.
January 11th, 2022 at 11:07 PM ^
Georgia, who lost their conference championship game and was thusly determined to be not the best team in their conference, could have been seeded 5th. Baylor could have been 4. Problem solved and much more interesting playoff. :)
January 12th, 2022 at 2:41 AM ^
LOL,
Putting a 2 loss Baylor team from a crap conference in over a 1 loss UGA (statistically best team in the country all year) and from the best conference over the past decade, is your solution to this?
'The conference championships should mean something' narrative is nice when comparing comprable teams and resumes, not when it's an arbitrary data point from an entire season.
UGA was the best team in the country and lost a game to the second best team in the country in the SEC championship game - where Bama needed to win, and UGA just showed up.
January 12th, 2022 at 3:12 PM ^
A 2 loss Big 12 champion that would have lost by 50 to Alabama or Georgia does not deserve to be in the playoff ahead of Georgia just because they won a tin pot mid major conference. That's ridiculous.
January 11th, 2022 at 11:56 PM ^
An obvious improvement would have been to seed us 1, then have UGA-Bama rematch in the semis.
January 12th, 2022 at 9:12 AM ^
Yes, and having Michigan potentially in two games would have boosted those ratings.
Also, if Michigan could have gotten by Cincinnati that playoff game experience may have made them better prepared for AL or GA.
January 12th, 2022 at 3:25 PM ^
And if Michigan hadn't blown what should have been a layup over Michigan State, that would have happened.
This isn't pro wrestling. They're not supposed to book things to go a certain way because it'll make ratings better. Alabama was better than Michigan this year by every quantifiable metric and they had the same record and the same conference title in their resume. Putting Michigan over them just because it would have been better for ratings turns the sport into a farce.
January 12th, 2022 at 4:48 PM ^
Losing to a top 10 team on the road isn’t a blowing a layup. Losing to an 8-4 team(Texas A&M) on the road is blowing a layup.
January 12th, 2022 at 9:14 PM ^
Wrong…
1) UM (13-0)
2) Bama (12-1)
3) Cincinnati (13-0)
4) UGA (12-1)
January 12th, 2022 at 9:03 PM ^
This is exactly what should have happened. Michigan in the final after disposing of Cincinnati would have brought the best ratings by far.
January 12th, 2022 at 8:55 AM ^
1. Michigan
2. Bama
3. Georgia
4. Cinci
Problem solved. UM v Georgia or UM v Bama would have had much higher ratings in the final. No one wants to watch an all SEC final anymore.
January 11th, 2022 at 5:57 PM ^
I was really hoping for sub 20M, damn...but still telling. Steady decline in viewers, with a couple bumps up throughout start of CFP
January 12th, 2022 at 12:36 AM ^
This is probably the right take. Steady decline in most college football games. The public are sick of insanely long, commercial-laden, quasi professional game, led by meaningless bowl games after a one month break, lacking parity and Herbstreit. It is in steady decline.
January 12th, 2022 at 9:55 AM ^
Classic case of killing the goose that lays golden eggs. The "grown-ups" running this planet aren't even capable of understanding parables aimed at small children.
The NCAA threw its weight behind two mutually exclusive goals: hoarding money and protecting corruption, but especially SEC hegemony (remember the brouhaha about camps?). That works if you can exploit some kind of social need (ISPs) and/or inelastic demand (pharmaceuticals), especially with a legal mandate (insurance). Sports has none of those things. You can live without it, there are plenty of alternatives, and the NCAA has no legal power to force people to watch. Not even cable bundling will save your ass when customers will just cut the cord once you run out of content. So when you actually succeed at turning the sport into a cartel, you can't control the damage to the market base.
But since the NCAA and the conferences (not to mention the TV companies) are stupid, stubborn, and amazingly petty, they're stuck trying to ever more aggressively milk a dwindling group fans who'll put up with infinite quantities of "monetizaton" bullshit.
January 11th, 2022 at 5:59 PM ^
Bama fatigue?
January 11th, 2022 at 6:02 PM ^
How could there not be? Amazing run for that franchise, er...school.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:11 PM ^
Also rematch fatigue. Rematches don't generally do well in the ratings.
There is debate as to whether or not to have this game as say the 1/4 or 2/3 semi-final matchup, but having a fresh matchup with the winner of that game vs. Michigan/Cincinnati would have scored higher ratings I am willing to bet.
January 11th, 2022 at 10:48 PM ^
Maybe but that then tanks the semi finals ratings so how is that any better?
January 12th, 2022 at 9:47 AM ^
The fatigue combination probably wasn't additive so much as multiplicative.
Folks are sick of Alabama and here we have a natty with Alabama yet again, and the other team just played them. For anyone who doesn't worship the SEC like a god, there was literally nothing at stake. Ooh, a rematch of red-clad semi-pro SEC team versus red-clad semi-pro SEC team. The drama!
January 11th, 2022 at 6:30 PM ^
SEC fatigue, Bama fatigue, UGA fatigue, rematch fatigue. All the above.
There's also a general decline in college football interest and viewership. Too many other quality entertainment options, the product is becoming worse with all the timeouts and commercials, etc.
There will be bumps when new blood makes the final. There is interest in novelty but the overall trendline is probably downward.
January 11th, 2022 at 7:14 PM ^
What other quality entertainment are you referring to?
January 11th, 2022 at 11:09 PM ^
Porn?
January 12th, 2022 at 6:31 AM ^
Antiques Roadshow was more interesting than the first half.
January 11th, 2022 at 7:15 PM ^
I've never missed a NCAA final game, until this year. Just had zero interest in watching 2 $EC semi-pro teams battle it out.
January 11th, 2022 at 7:54 PM ^
Same here.
My only other boycott was Bama v Lsu.
January 11th, 2022 at 9:50 PM ^
The game was boring in the first quarter and the lap dog SEC announcers were annoying (I normally like them). I tuned out - wonder how many others did as well and lowered the number of TV viewers.
January 11th, 2022 at 10:47 PM ^
The entire first half of the game was boring. This was a killer because folks east of the Mississippi that traditionally care more about college football than the western half probably became disinterested and tuned out to go to bed.
I only cared because I wanted to see UGA win to vindicate their beating Michigan. And I had money on UGA. If neither of these things were the case for me I probably wouldn't have watched past halftime.
January 11th, 2022 at 8:09 PM ^
I've never watched one. Its irrelevant and a waste of my time unless Michigan is playing. I am not about to let someone make money off of my viewership when it doesnt benefit the team I passionately cheer for and care most about. No one else should be making money off of me.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:00 PM ^
Meh. Was a good game. Especially watching Jimbo and his staff "cover" it.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:04 PM ^
Even with everyone at home with Covid, nobody wanted to watch Osu and bama last year
January 11th, 2022 at 9:05 PM ^
Though watching osu’s tuf borland hobble with a club foot in pathetic pursuit of at least one bama TD reception was, in this commenter’s opinion, worth watching.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:04 PM ^
They have to expand the playoffs...as it is, its basically a Southeast regional game. 2/3rds or more of the country has real no connection to the teams involved.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:42 PM ^
100% agree on expanding the playoffs, but the title game this year would probably still have been these two teams. An expanded playoff will add intrigue, allow for less concentrated power at the top, make a lot more total games during the regular season matter, solve the issue of opt outs in NY6 bowls, and provide some entertaining playoff games (4vs. 5 and 3 vs. 6 games will likely be competitive); however, it probably wouldn’t have stopped Bama from dominating under Saban, this UGA team from winning the title this year, LSU from winning in 2019, etc. Take a look at NDSU winning 9 championships since 2010 in a playoff platform.
January 11th, 2022 at 9:01 PM ^
You may be right about the same two teams. Then again Alabama lost to a solid but not elite A&M team and went toe to toe with teams that they were heavily favored against. This was one of the more mortal Alabama teams this year and someone could have gotten them.
I think OSU could have given Georgia a run given their athletes, specifically the WRs. Alabama won the sec championship because of being able to air it out.
January 11th, 2022 at 11:08 PM ^
First paragraph was fine. Second paragraph -- no way. OSU's defense was bad this past season. UGA would've stomped OSU much worse than they stomped Michigan.
January 12th, 2022 at 6:45 AM ^
Not sure about that. Sure, Georgia would have scored at will, but OSU would have likely scored much more than Michigan.
January 12th, 2022 at 9:04 AM ^
Not sure OSU would've given Stroud enough time...
January 12th, 2022 at 3:35 AM ^
Yes, but even if the same teams end up in the finals having more games would bring in more teams and viewers from across the country...as the field narrows some/many of the viewers of the losing teams would stay engaged and result in stronger viewership numbers w each round leading into the championship.
January 12th, 2022 at 3:13 AM ^
It's also unfair to non-SEC conference championship game losers that they don't get rematches.
January 12th, 2022 at 10:23 AM ^
Not only the lack of connection, I'm seeing a general disdain for the south and any of its major institutions, academic or otherwise.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:05 PM ^
In person attendance looked horrid. Upper decks were empty. If the title game were Michigan vs Cincinnati, it would have been a sellout.
January 11th, 2022 at 7:00 PM ^
ESPN's boxscore said 68K people there, which is capacity, but I don't believe a word of it. Tickets "sold," sure; butts in seats, no.
January 11th, 2022 at 7:20 PM ^
Have any actual or estimated attendance figures been published since last night?
I did a quick search and found... NOTHING.
January 11th, 2022 at 9:12 PM ^
From the ESPN website boxscore, under the "team stats" section, scroll down and at the lower left there is this:
January 11th, 2022 at 11:14 PM ^
Like you posted earlier, "butts in the seats? No!"
January 11th, 2022 at 7:19 PM ^
I haven't seen pictures with the empty seats. I know it wasn't a sellout, but it looked pretty packed to me.
January 11th, 2022 at 7:24 PM ^
You could tell on the TV broadcast the upper decks were completely empty. Lights were out to try to hide it.
January 11th, 2022 at 11:11 PM ^
The camera angles were kept low and cropped to avoid showing the upper decks as well.
January 11th, 2022 at 8:04 PM ^
But Kirk Herbstreit said he'd never seen such an electric atmosphere for a championship game. He wouldn't make that up, while being nearly drowned out by the broadcast's recorded noise, would he?