College Football Playoff's decline in viewership has clear reasons

A head-to-head battle with the NFL, an unusual channel alignment, and two G5 teams replacing a tradition power all lead to a Week 1 CFP viewership decline from a season ago.

James Madison's loss to Oregon didn't draw great TV ratings for several reasons. | Chris Pietsch/The Register-Guard / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

After a season in which college football generally had a marked increase in viewership, the opening weekend of the College Football Playoff was a significant stumble. On average, the first round of the CFP averaged 9.9 milliion viewers, according to reports from the Associated Press. That represented a decline of roughly 7% from a season ago.

Again, if there's good news here for college football, it's that there a several very clear reasons for that decline-- and some of them should be fairly simple to address.

The most obvious issue was that Saturday's battle of James Madison and Oregon went head-to-head with an NFL game. The Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers drew nearly five times the viewership of JMU and Oregon.

For that matter, the presence of James Madison probably made a difference. While basketball's NCAA Tournament draws significant interest in upsets, having a pair of Group of Five teams in the Playoff at the expense of a traditional power like Notre Dame doubtlessly prompted a dip in the ratings.

The television channels themselves were also likely part of the problem. Both Tulane/Ole Miss and James Madison/Oregon were shown on TNT/TBS/TruTV. Accordingly, the earlier game drew 6.2 million viewers while the latter averaged 4.4 million. While those numbers were down from 8.6 million on those channels for Texas vs. Clemson a year ago, the reduced footpring of those channels versus ABC or ESPN, likely had some impact.

After all, the early Saturday game of Texas A&M vs. Miami and Friday's Alabama/Oklahoma battle both drew very nice viewing audiences. Those two games averaged 14.8 and 14.9 million viewers, respectively. That represented about a 10% increase from first-round viewership of Notre Dame vs. Indiana a season ago.

The CFP's decision to schedule Miami and Texas A&M as the early game on Saturday was likely a factor in declined viewership for the opening week of the College Football Playoff. | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

But then again, the timing of the games might have held significance too. It was very likely, among the three games, that Texas A&M's game with Miami would likely be more competitive that either of the G5 games. Nonetheless, A&M and Miami drew the earliest TV viewing window, which also likely impacted the final numbers for the weekend.

The question will now remain-- what will the CFP do about the situation? Will a second G5 team have its path made less tenable or even blocked altogether? Will the arrangements with TNT/TBS be shifted somehow? Will the Playoff pay more attention to the competitiveness of the game and power of the teams in setting TV times? As with many things about the CFP, the future is long on questions, but short on answers.