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 6:05 PM ^
The whole upper deck of the stadium seemed to be empty as well despite Kirk Herbstreit's insistence that this was the most electric crowd he had ever heard for a national championship game.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:23 PM ^
I mean it took a lot of energy to generate the crowd noise. So.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:24 PM ^
Herb street's upper deck is empty
January 11th, 2022 at 7:07 PM ^
Haha. Weeping Herbie Kirkstreet. Fucking weasel.
January 11th, 2022 at 7:25 PM ^
Fake weeping Herbstreit
January 11th, 2022 at 11:12 PM ^
I mean...........what......are we doin' here..........man?!"
January 12th, 2022 at 4:24 PM ^
This will be the good thing I share at dinner tonight. Thank you. Blew snot out of the old nostrils.
January 11th, 2022 at 7:23 PM ^
I used to appreciate Herbie, but my support has been waning. His suggestion M avoided OSU last year was dumb and unnecessary and was the icing on the cake for me. Now he’s doing NFL games as well. Can’t stand him.
January 11th, 2022 at 10:00 PM ^
Maybe he could be a sideline reporter.
January 12th, 2022 at 9:12 AM ^
He wouldn't look good in a skirt.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:14 PM ^
people not interested in watching a rerun I guess
January 11th, 2022 at 6:17 PM ^
Out of curiosity (may have been in another post, but don't recall seeing it) what ratings did the semifinals get?
January 11th, 2022 at 6:23 PM ^
16.5 million
January 11th, 2022 at 6:36 PM ^
And that also occurred at prime time on New Years Eve, probably the night the least amount of people in the country are lounging at home looking for some TV to watch.
January 11th, 2022 at 11:39 PM ^
Yeah, I'm sure everyone was out and about on NYE because everyone in America is still in their 20s and there's no fucking pandemic anymore.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:20 PM ^
SEC/Rematch fatigue. Dynasties in the NFL are fun because organizations are doing it at a competitive disadvantage (best team picks last, players all demand raises after winning) so if you are consistently good like the Patriots it is special.
The current Dynasties in college football are boring because they are just doing it by collecting all the talent with $$$. If only a handful of teams can ever compete, people lose interest very quickly. It doesn't feel very special when teams get all the 5* recruits and then, SHOCK they win the title. Imagine the NFL if a few teams were given multiple picks in the top rounds every year, just because? People would bail very quickly.
And before anyone mentions the Yankees in baseball, baseball is a different animal. You can amass tons of talent in baseball and still not win because every season has a ton of randomness in a player's performance. Great football players are much more consistent.,
January 11th, 2022 at 6:40 PM ^
Sounds like European Soccer? I don’t follow it as much as I did when I was younger but I can’t imagine it’s a ton of fun being an Aston Villa fan. On the other hand, that Leicester season a few years ago was magical
January 11th, 2022 at 6:42 PM ^
The two best teams were in the game but that didn't make it a good game to watch. My wife who doesn't follow football like we do commented on the size and speed of players from both of those teams. "Where do they get them? They are huge and fast!" They are the best $ could buy, dear.
With NIL college sports has become pro sports with younger players, no salary cap, and no draft. Look at what A&M just did in recruiting. When the backup Qb at tOSU has $1.2M in NIL contracts the big boys can just belly up to the bar and not hide it anymore.
Remember when Clemson was rumored to have pursued Rashan Gary with $300k? That no longer even gets the phone answered. Caleb Williams will openly make somewhere around the NFL average next year wherever he lands.
January 11th, 2022 at 7:20 PM ^
Every single thing about Alabama bores me to tears. The team, the coach, the players, the fans, even the goddamn uniforms. It's probably because the program's figurehead is a joyless robot and the rest of the team is a reflection of the head coach and has no personality whatsoever. Almost every time I've watched them over the past few years, I've been bored to death.
The FSU and Miami dynasties seemed to enjoy it at least. And they had some wild characters and a fun energy that made tuning in pretty fun, even if you hated them. Shit, even Tom Osborne's Nebraska Cornhuskers had some scandals from time to time to make them not totally boring.
January 11th, 2022 at 8:06 PM ^
You had me until "Nebraska".
January 11th, 2022 at 8:25 PM ^
Oh man, you don't remember Christian Peter and Lawrence Phillips? Those guys were nuts.
January 11th, 2022 at 7:22 PM ^
It shows the state of the national championship that you can reliably predict 1 of probably 3-4 teams that will win it next year. Absolutely nothing interesting about the national title hunt. It'll be Bama, UGA, or OSU or next year. Snooze
January 11th, 2022 at 6:20 PM ^
For me it was just the game being boring. My only interest was that Athens is a great town filled with nice people.
Not to threadjack but, watching Will Andersen ball out in the first half (I didn't bother watching 2nd half) made me feel like the wrong Alabama player got the Heisman nom, and even more so solidified the feeling that Hutch deserved it this year. The Ohio State game ranks among the great athletic performances I've ever witnessed.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:20 PM ^
1. The game was boring, especially the first half
2. We had just seen these 2 teams play each other
3. Bama and Georgia don't have a national following, not on the level of Michigan, ND etc.
4. SEC football is boring in general, just my personal preference
5. Also personal preference, but dome games are hard to watch, aesthetically speaking. It's an ugly experience
6. Along those same lines, red on red teams are boring to watch
7. Bama fatigue
8. I used to kind of enjoy Herbie, but something about the way he's called games this year just rubbed me the wrong way. Bad attitude or something, can't put my finger on it
January 11th, 2022 at 6:34 PM ^
Agree on the Domes. They are nice, but there’s no tradition, and it doesn’t feel like college football. Personally, I’d much rather see the NC at the Rose Bowl every year.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:22 PM ^
Most people watched at a Waffle House, so it skewed the ratings. Should have been expected. It was for the Waffle House Trophy.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:36 PM ^
I hear what you’re saying, but Waffle House is amazing!
January 11th, 2022 at 7:14 PM ^
Especially those foam-flavored waffles.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:26 PM ^
Playing this game on a weeknight is just dumb. They need to stop trying to copy basketball with the Monday night thing. Football games aren't over in two hours like basketball games are. Play it on the weekend, or at least Friday night.
January 11th, 2022 at 10:02 PM ^
It’s amazing the collective salaries that were paid to the half brain dead exec who decided games in the evening on NYE and on a Monday night in early January were a great idea.
January 12th, 2022 at 10:26 AM ^
I logged in to agree with you. My son and I would have watched this game together if it wasn't past his bedtime on a f**ing Monday night. And I wasn't interested in watching it on my own.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:30 PM ^
Well the semi finals averaged 16.9 so they weren’t any better. That was a 2-3 million viewer drop from the semis last year. Maybe people are just over the current format or have much more pressing things going on these days?
January 11th, 2022 at 6:40 PM ^
I think a lot of people had more pressing things going on, it was prime time on New Years Eve. Really seems like a terrible slot to schedule something you want people to sit down and watch.
January 11th, 2022 at 10:51 PM ^
I think a lot of people had more pressing things going on, it was prime time on New Years Eve. Really seems like a terrible slot to schedule something you want people to sit down and watch.
This right here. I wanted to watch the Michigan-Georgia game live more than anything but NYE commitments forced me to watch on delay. The semis need to move to Dec. 30 or Jan. 1.
January 12th, 2022 at 6:54 AM ^
Sounds like a blessing in disguise.
January 12th, 2022 at 9:42 AM ^
Ha, you're not wrong.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:43 PM ^
The semi's were on New Year's Eve, a programming disaster.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:45 PM ^
The semi’s were also on New Years Eve. I really hate that they do that. Many people have other plans.
(Edit) A little late to the party on this take!!
January 11th, 2022 at 9:59 PM ^
Maybe I’m a grouch, but I like it. Perfect excuse to stay home and avoid people I don’t like or find another like-minded spouse to watch the game with while we avoid others.
January 12th, 2022 at 9:16 AM ^
Too much partying at Yasgur's Farm?
January 11th, 2022 at 6:32 PM ^
So just going to confess, between the corruption of the system, its implementation coinciding with a giant pile of Michigan suck and the defacto decision that late season games and their conference Championship are irrelevant to SEC spots: I have watched exactly one of the CFP games, ever (you can surmise which one).
I have only one regret: there was a season where the next weekend some OSU fan was complaining at my poker table that they got jobbed by the refs (against Clemson perhaps?). To listen to an OSU fan complain about officiating at a table full of followers of other BiG schools was just golden. Would have enjoyed watching that game.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:58 PM ^
That must have been the 2019 game. They have a case; the refs made the usual bad targeting call and also called what looked like a catch and a fumble an incomplete pass--which Ohio State would have returned for a touchdown had it been ruled correctly.
The thing is, though, that Ohio State really should have had a big lead at the time and they didn't. They dominated the first half or so of the game but only led 16-0 because they kicked three field goals. If they'd been able to get into the endzone none of this matters.
Dobbins dropped two sure touchdown passes in that game. I think that's karma for the play against Michigan that year where he dribbled the ball on a long run. Greg Mattison's D also blew a 16-point lead. But I digress.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:35 PM ^
This is the same trend as in NFL, NBA, NCAA tournament, and NHL. Down by a lot in the last two or three years mostly because viewers get content in other ways. Down especially during the pandemic.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:59 PM ^
Michigan - Ohio State cleaned up in the ratings, so it feels like more of a CFP issue.
January 11th, 2022 at 8:01 PM ^
I don’t understand the pandemic excuse. Wouldn’t more people be at home watching the game than being out and about?
January 12th, 2022 at 5:18 AM ^
I don't understand, either. Some have speculated that the pandemic caused people to turn to streaming over cable, as they binge on shit like Westworld. But those seem additive and not mutually exclusive to me. Could also be (especially in 2020) that audiences were not excited for events (like the world series, the bubble in the NBA) that either didn't have fans or were played outside the seasonal time period. Or both. The broader trend of 'cable cutting' I understand but the pandemic slump for major sporting events is odd.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:35 PM ^
Didn’t tune in myself, had to watch the chili bowl!
January 11th, 2022 at 6:37 PM ^
Michigan/Ohio State drew 15,000,000 viewers. Michigan in the final would have drawn millions of more viewers.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:37 PM ^
New teams crest rankings, that looks like a clear factor.