Georgia Bulldogs quarterback Stetson Bennett (13) kisses the trophy Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022, after defeating Alabama in the College Football Playoff National Championship at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

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CFP title-game ratings lag again despite slight uptick

Georgia staged a fourth-quarter rally to defeat Alabama in the College Football Playoff final on Monday night, but television viewers weren’t completely enthralled.

While TV ratings for the contest were up 19 percent from the CFP title game the prior year, the contest was still the second-least-watched college football championship game this century.

A total of 22.6 million viewers across numerous ESPN-branded networks watched Georgia top Alabama 33-18 in Indianapolis. Last year, when Alabama routed Ohio State 52-24 for the title, 18.7 million tuned in.

Since the Bowl Championship Series began pitting the nation’s top two teams in a title game in 1998-99, and then the current four-team CFP system began in 2014-15, last year’s game and this year’s game sit at the bottom of the ratings list.

The record rating during the CFP era was 34.6 million when Ohio State beat Oregon 42-20 to cap the 2014-15 season.

When Alabama beat Georgia 26-23 in overtime to determine the 2017-18 championship, 28.4 million people watched.

According to ESPN, the Monday game was the highest-rated event on cable television since LSU’s 42-25 win over Clemson in the 2019-20 CFP title game. The network also stated that the game’s 29 percent “share” (percentage of viewers watching television at the time who were watching that program) was a record for the BCS era.

–Field Level Media

Field Level Media
Sport Writer & Editor
FLM has a North American focus while tying into regional and hyper-local resources – providing the ability to distribute compelling content through the writing of professional journalists. As the U.S. sports content provider to dozens of digital and print media publishers through strategic partnerships with the likes of Reuters and Nielsen Sports, FLM covers the nuts and bolts with a breaking news desk and game event coverage.

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