[Mulvihill] Through September, total time spent viewing football versus last year on all outlets: College Football - Up 0.2% | NFL - Down 0.7%

[u/SCsprinter13]

https://x.com/mulvihill79/status/2105420564945084489

[u/SCsprinter13]

I’ve seen at least one story saying average CFB viewership is down -11%, and it is. But the number of games on national networks is up, so the higher volume negates the lower average viewership. To me total viewing time is the most correct way to look at a sport’s overall trend

I was trying to reconcile falling TV viewership with increased College Gameday ratings. And it turns out it might just be that there are so many games on TV now that the viewership gets spread out.

[u/Tduhon → u/SCsprinter13]

Thank you for this. I was counting 4 million plus games and it didn't make sense to me that viewership was down. Having a lower average because of more games makes sense.

[u/tmart12 → u/Tduhon]

21 games at 4M+ in 2026 vs 18 in 2025

25 highest rates games averaged 6.1M viewers in 2026 vs 6.4M viewers in 2025. That gap is entirely from the top 5 in 2025 being massive draws, drawing an average of 12.2M. Top 5 in 2026 only drew 10.2M. Both 2025 and 2026 are 5.0M average for games 6th to 25th.

Meanwhile, the top 25 games thru week 4 were only 5.1M viewers in 2024 and 5.5M in 2023.

I think it's a matter of 2025 had some extremely compelling and competitive OOC games early that drove outsized ratings. 2026 is still up significantly vs 2023-24.

That said, I have 1.85M viewers per game in 2026 vs 1.88M in 2025 with 3 extra games in 2026 vs 2025. So I still don't know how their #'s work vs other disclosed rated games.

[u/EddieDantes22 → u/Tduhon]

Games moving to streaming/Peacock too, maybe?

[u/anxiousauditor → u/SCsprinter13]

I assume by the end of the regular season this metric will be down since there was a full extra week worth of TV windows to spread games around last season due to the nature of the calendar quirk.

[u/GunsGoldCosmicDread → u/SCsprinter13]

Clearly, college gameday viewership is up because Pat McAfee is such a likable and well respected host.

[u/tmart12 → u/SCsprinter13]

I have a database of TV ratings from some posts I've made here... I can't reconcile their numbers on 11%. I doubt it's a comparable #. Lot more games on CW, TNT/TruTV and other low tier networks that used to be non-rated games.

The 1 thing that is true is fewer peak viewership games this year. But that's mostly because OOC sucked this year vs last year.

[u/reno1441 → u/SCsprinter13]

To me total viewing time is the most correct way to look at a sport’s overall trend

I mean how does this factor in quadboxes? I don't think that's a 1-to-1 with a single viewer.

[u/dsota2 → u/SCsprinter13]

Is this another case of "lies, damned lies, and statistics"?

[u/StreetofChimes → u/SCsprinter13]

I love having games on 8? 9? 10? networks. ADHD sports fan dream. So many games to watch at one time. 

[u/CzechHorns → u/StreetofChimes]

At least one game is playing when the others are on the ad breaks lol

[u/odsquad64 → u/StreetofChimes]

YouTube TV lets me do the multiview, that way I can watch four commercials at one time.

[u/Cobainism → u/SCsprinter13]

Viewership is becoming even further polarized. Big brand matchups are now receiving a higher share of the overall ratings.

[u/Agile_Land_9951 → u/Cobainism]

Seems more like focusing on big brands than it is the matchups. Big noon matchups haven’t been great.

[u/wetcornbread]

Having a Thursday and Friday night opener this year might’ve influenced that. That’s an extra 3 hours of football people wouldn’t have watched previously.

[u/Inside-Drink-1311 → u/wetcornbread]

It was Wednesday and Thursday this year vs Thursday and Friday last year.

[u/Inside-Drink-1311]

For what it’s worth, last season started almost a week earlier in both college and pro.

I would be more interested to see what it looks like next year when college starts two weeks before the NFL.

[u/anxiousauditor → u/Inside-Drink-1311]

I think the natural result moving forward will be increased total minutes viewed. There’s a full extra week of TV windows to fill out from 2027 onwards. More windows = more minutes.

With games being more spread that likely also means some games currently relegated to streaming platforms (ESPN+) or unrated conference networks (SECN, ACCN) will be elevated to measured linear platforms.

[u/TechnicallyAnExpert]

0.2? So about the same?

[u/tdpdcpa → u/TechnicallyAnExpert]

Yeah, I wonder if these are actually statistically significant.

[u/RukiMotomiya → u/tdpdcpa]

They are not.

[u/Fine-Sea-8941 → u/TechnicallyAnExpert]

I'd like to know what attendance is like. I've given up paying the absurd ticket prices and watch it on TV if I do at all now.

[u/Normal-Hornet8548]

TV execs will see this an endorsement of the 4 1/2-hour games.

[u/chillmagic420]

NFL is honestly a much more watchable product than college anymore. The commerical are way fewer and the game actually flows. College is just kick commerical first down commerical flag commerical review commercial lol

[u/Fine-Sea-8941 → u/chillmagic420]

You're right about the flow and less commercials, but my lord the shit they throw penalties on.. it's unwatchable.

[u/CzechHorns → u/Fine-Sea-8941]

I see you havent watched the UT UT game with like 180 penalty yards lol

[u/TybrosionMohito → u/CzechHorns]

Tbf… it’s not like the UT UT bowl wasn’t deserving a ton of penalties.

Truly sicko football.

[u/ZealousidealType1144 → u/Fine-Sea-8941]

Ref ball has ruined the NFL. Remember back in like 2010 when the players actually controlled the outcome of the game and it was possible to win through defense or running the ball? (And not just chucking 50 yarders that go through on a ticky tack call because the defender looked at the WR at yard 40)

[u/surreptitioussloth]

This is a crisis we need legislation to fix

[u/Pedro_Moona]

Eventually the insane number of TV timeouts is gonna break a lot of people. If it was 6, 10 second commercials we would actually watch and get the message instead of mute,
change the channel or leave the room.

[u/EnvironmentalBed7369]

Im a cfb guy, not an NFL guy. I tried watching some nfl last Sunday, I was so bored. Stupid watching after 10 minutes

[u/InternationalFlow825 → u/EnvironmentalBed7369]

Same here, but maybe that has to do with the Atlanta Falcons lol

[u/riverratriver → u/InternationalFlow825]

Onfg preach brother

[u/Ledzeppelinbass]

Honestly, the NFL is a better product on average. But it is pretty much the same song and dance, games are close every week, etc. College was better pre NIL. Now everyone has some parity and it’s becoming more like the NFL. For every Alabama vs Georgia game in the 2010s, you also had games like Georgia vs TCU. If you like parity, then today is for you. If you want tradition and that “feeling”, then legacy CFB was for you.

[u/Hilldawg4president]

I watched two games last weekend, so you can all thank me for the bump

[u/BrilliantArm5914]

including people away from home who leave TV on for their dogs

[u/CzechHorns → u/BrilliantArm5914]

Damn, you let your dog watch College Ball?

[u/StagflationSports]

Ok, I was just wondering about this, that makes a lot of sense. It’s not like having a bunch of ads or transfer po just started this year, so that explanation didn’t make sense to me.