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Ohio State, Alabama Least Watched National Championship Game of All Time

ESPN says 18.7 million viewers watched the CFP National Title Game on Monday night.

Despite the fact that arguably the two biggest brands in college football squared off against each other in the College Football Playoff (CFP) National Championship Game, a much smaller audience than usual paid attention.

ESPN announced on Monday evening that their overnight TV ratings drew an audience of 18.7 million viewers, which makes it the least watched national championship game since 1998 when the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was first instituted.

Remarkably, that audience is lower than each of the CFP semifinal games on New Years Day. The Ohio State-Clemson Sugar Bowl game drew 19.1 million viewers and the Alabama-Notre Dame Rose Bowl game had a viewership of 18.9 million.

That said, sports viewership has decreased dramatically since the beginning of the CoVID-19 pandemic. The NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball all saw a dramatic dip in TV viewership, including the NFL playoffs this past weekend (they were down a whopping 22 percent).

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