ESPN College Football Playoff delivers big ratings Clemson vs Alabama

Espn College Football
4 min readJan 8, 2017

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Despite landing on New Year’s Eve again, the College Football Playoff semifinals proved to be a big ratings success for ESPN.

A massive point of contention in last year’s College Football Playoff was the timing of it. Clemson vs Alabama They aired the two semifinal games on New Year’s Eve, which fell on a Thursday, and the ratings were as horrible as everyone expected. Of course, it didn’t help that the two games weren’t close.

ESPN College Football

This year’s Playoff proved to be an exact replica of last year’s. In the first game, the underdog put up a fight, but ended up losing by double digits. In the second game, a Big Ten team got shut out by over 30 points. And in the end, Clemson and Alabama emerged victorious. However, the TV ratings turned out to be much higher than last year’s Playoff, while also setting a record for their streaming service.

A press release from ESPN revealed all of the figures from last Saturday’s games. Washington vs. Alabama had an overnight rating of 11.5, while an average of 470,000 viewers streamed the game on watchESPN. Ohio State vs. Clemson delivered an overnight rating of 10.5, while an average of 410,000 viewers watched the game online.

ESPN College Football live It’s a little surprising to see the Alabama game get higher ratings than Ohio State vs. Clemson considering that game was more even on paper. But the fact that it was on late, combined with the score being 24–0 after three quarters, probably contributed to a lot of people turning it off part-way through.

ESPN College Football live stream Overall, the fact that both games reached double digits in ratings despite being blowouts on New Year’s Eve is very encouraging. The Playoff committee felt that as long as the games were on a Saturday, they would still be a success. If next year’s games end up being close, they could end up shattering these figures.

Both New Year’s Eve College Football Playoff semifinals drew a bigger television and online audience than the games last season, but there were still far fewer people watching the games than when they were played on New Year’s Day two seasons ago.

Alabama’s 24–7 Peach Bowl victory against Washington, which kicked off around 3:15 p.m. ET, drew an 11.5 overnight rating for ESPN and ESPN2 and 19.8 million total viewers, including those who streamed the game online. Clemson vs Alabama live The total audience increased 24 percent compared to last season’s early semifinal, Oklahoma-Clemson.

National Championship Clemson’s 31–0 win over Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, which kicked off around 7:15 p.m. ET, had a total live audience of 19.6 million and got a 10.5 overnight rating, ESPN said. The audience increased 4 percent from the late time slot last season, when Alabama shut out Michigan State.

ESPN said the TV-only audiences were up 23 percent for the early game and 3 percent for the late game, and both games set streaming records. Both games, like last season, were blowouts, making it difficult to reach the marks set in the playoff’s first year.

“It’s nice to know that more people watched the semifinals this year than last year,” said Bill Hancock, executive director of the College Football Playoff Final Clemson vs Alabama live stream. “Nice to know that the format change we made last year — that the semifinals will be either on a Saturday or national holiday — will allow more people to watch the games.”

National Championship live After ratings and viewership plunged by 34 percent from the first playoff to the second, conference commissioners who manage the postseason system decided to move future dates for semifinals off New Year’s Eve when it falls on a weekday.

This year’s games were also played an hour earlier, so the later game didn’t bump up against the stroke of midnight on the East Coast.

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