The NFL continues to prove that it’s king.
Last Saturday, the NFL scheduled two afternoon games the went up against the first round of the College Football Playoff and despite it being the first time college football expanded to a 12-team playoff, the NFL dominated the ratings.
There were 15.4 million viewers for the Baltimore Ravens win over the Pittsburgh Steelers on Fox and 15.5 million viewers on NBC for the late afternoon matchup that saw the Kansas City Chiefs defeat the Houston Texans, according to Sports Media Watch.
Saturday’s afternoon CFP first-round matchups aired on TNT, TBS and truTV, with Texas’ win over Clemson bringing in 8.6 million viewers and Penn State knocking out SMU seeing 6.4 million. The two evening games — Ohio State topping Tennessee (14.3 million) and Notre Dame’s rout of Indiana (13.4 million) — each delivered strong numbers with no competition from the NFL.
Despite going head-to-head with two NFL games and the results ending up in blowouts, the CFP numbers in context were very good. Across the board, the four games averaged 10.6 million viewers with Tennessee-Ohio State and Indiana-Notre Dame delivering two of the three largest audiences of the season for college football.
Clemson-Texas and SMU-Penn State were the two most-watched college football games that aired exclusively on cable this season.
The NFL will go up against the NBA on Christmas Day with a double-header on Netflix starting with the Kansas City Chiefs vs Pittsburgh Steelers followed by the Baltimore Ravens vs Houston Texans.
