College Football Playoff Semifinals Deliver ESPN Cable TV's Top Two Audiences Ever

The first-ever College Football Playoff semifinals on New Year’s Day delivered ESPN the two best audiences in cable TV history. Ohio State’s upset win over No. 1 Alabama at the Allstate Sugar Bowl in the 9:00pm ET window drew 28.27 million viewers to mark the most-viewed telecast in cable TV history. Oregon’s 59-20 rout of Florida State in the Rose Bowl leading into that late game drew 28.16 million viewers. Both CFP semis passed ESPN’s first-ever BCS national title game in ’11 for the top spot in cable history. That ’11 Auburn-Oregon BCS title game drew 27.32 million viewers. The top five cable TV audiences now are all college football games. ESPN also holds the top 18 largest cable TV audiences all time, as well as 36 of the top 40 (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor). In N.Y., Kevin Armstrong noted the Sugar Bowl kickoff "was delayed a half hour" to 9:00pm "due to a long-running Rose Bowl." ESPN wanted "to make sure that the games did not overlap," and viewers "tuned in en masse for both" (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 1/3). 

WATCH & LEARN: WatchESPN drew 912,000 unique viewers for the Sugar Bowl telecast, marking the most-watched CFB game ever on the service. Despite technical issues, the Rose Bowl drew 816,000 unique viewers on WatchESPN, setting a record for any Rose Bowl matchup (ESPN). The AP reported WatchESPN "went down ... during the first half" of the Rose Bowl. Fans trying to watch the game on their tablets or computers "got an error message." The stream "appeared to begin working again for at least some users during halftime" (AP, 1/1). The L.A. DAILY NEWS noted since the game was on ESPN, as opposed to over the air on ABC, WatchESPN "was the way many fans had prepared to watch the first-ever game" in the CFP system. Users of ESPN’s online streaming service "were not happy, and expressed their displeasure on social media" (DAILYNEWS.com, 1/1).

BOWLING FOR VIEWERS: ESPN's college football tripleheader last Wednesday delivered the net's most-viewed New Year’s Eve tripleheader on record (dating back to '90). The Chick-fil-A Peach, Vizio Fiesta and Capital One Orange bowls combined to average 7.12 million viewers, up sharply from 4.65 million viewers for the '13 tripleheader, which featured the Independence, AutoZone Liberty and Chick-fil-A bowls (ESPN). MULTICHANNEL NEWS' Mike Reynolds noted each of the three games also "delivered the largest audience for a New Year’s Eve game on an ESPN network in its respective timeslot" (MULTICHANNEL.com, 1/1). In Boise, Chadd Cripe noted the Boise State-Arizona Fiesta Bowl, which finished with 7.4 million viewers, "was the highest-rated in its New Year’s Eve time slot in ESPN history." The audience for the 4:00pm ET kickoff "was more than double that for any other Boise State game this season." The previous best was 3.38 million viewers for Boise State-UConn that aired regionally on on ABC and ESPN2 on Sept. 13. This year's Fiesta Bowl audience "was significantly lower" than for the school’s previous appearances -- games that began after 6:00pm. The '10 Fiesta Bowl against TCU averaged Fox in '10 drew 13.8 million viewers  for the Boise State-TCU Fiesta Bowl, while the net drew 13.78 million viewers for the '07 Boise State-Oklahoma game (IDAHO STATESMAN, 1/3).

THROWBACK APPROACH: In L.A., Tom Hoffarth wrote a "menu of meaningful football games" on New Year's Day means ESPN "has figured out that it’s not necessary to space out the major bowl season." This "may be as close as we’ll get to the days of yesteryear." It is "not perfect, but surely, much better than the TV experience we’ve nearly lost on a generation of viewers until now" (L.A. DAILY NEWS, 1/2). But in Boston, Dan Shaughnessy wrote ESPN's "self-congratulatory coverage of the bowl playoff Thursday made NESN’s coverage of the Red Sox sound like '60 Minutes.'" From the tone of things, you "would have thought the Worldwide Leader liberated Paris" (BOSTON GLOBE, 1/4).

CHAMPIONSHIP FORECAST: In Miami, Greg Cote wrote next week's championship game "gets a true power in Heisman Trophy-led Oregon and a sort of Cinderella in Ohio State, considering its quarterback injuries." But Cote added, "I can't help but feel America at large would have preferred and turned Alabama-FSU into a bigger TV draw" (MIAMIHERALD.com, 12/3). In N.Y., Richard Sandomir asked of the championship game, "Will the final’s viewership soar beyond 30 million, to a level akin to that of the NFL conference championship games, which averaged 53.7 million viewers last year? Or will it fall below that aspirational level without a magnet team like Alabama as a draw?" Sandomir: "I’ll predict 45 million" (N.Y. TIMES, 1/3).