The viewership numbers for the College Football Playoff first-round games are in, and Tennessee is once again the focus of millions of Americans.
It has become somewhat of a trend that Tennessee is at or near the top in viewership numbers, whether it's football, basketball, or baseball. Tennessee routinely has some of the most watched games in the regular season, and that has carried over to the CFP.
In the inaugural 12-team CFP, the first round consisted of four games. Two were hosted on ESPN/ABC, while the other two games were hosted by Turner Broadcasting: TNT, TBS, and streaming on MAX.
Unsurprisingly, the two games on ESPN crushed the games on Turner, which average about half the viewership as the two primetime ESPN games, based on Stewart Mandel's reporting on X.
Tennessee-Ohio State had the most viewers of the weekend, with 14.3 million tuning into the primetime matchup at The Shoe. Notre Dame-Indiana's game had 13.4 million, Clemson-Texas had 8.6 million, and Penn State-SMU only had 6.4 million viewers.
CFP first-round TV numbers are in. The 2 ESPN games were *huge*.
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) December 23, 2024
ESPN
Ohio St-Tennessee: 14.3M
Notre Dame-Indiana: 13.4M
TNT
Clemson-Texas: 8.6M
Penn St-SMU: 6.4M
Mandel later referenced a comparison for the games broadcast on ESPN. Last year's college basketball national championship game had 14.8 million viewers, which is only 500,000 fewer viewers than the first-round Playoff matchup between the Vols and Buckeyes.
The two games broadcast by Turner are also the most-watched bowl games shown on those networks since the 1996 Carquest Bowl between Miami and Virginia. That wasn't an ACC vs. ACC matchup at the time, as Miami was still a member of the Big East.
With the numbers coming in for the first-round games of the CFP, we could be in for some huge viewership numbers as we progress through the Playoffs.
Previous national championship games consistently sit at the 22 million viewers mark, but the most viewed national championship game was in 2014 between Ohio State and Oregon, with 34.1 million viewers. Will the CFP surpass its record viewership numbers in the inaugural season of the 12-team CFP?