Everyone in the SEC is high-fiving right now. If you look at the raw college football tv ratings from the 2025 regular season, you’d think the sport is basically the only thing keeping cable TV from imploding into a black hole. Nielsen's late December data basically confirmed that Alabama is still the king of the world, averaging nearly 8.5 million viewers every single time they stepped on a field. That’s insane.
But there's a weird, quiet panic happening in the boardroom meetings at Disney and Fox.
The total time spent watching college ball across all networks hit 179 billion minutes this past year. That is a record. Up 9% from 2024. But here is the thing: a huge chunk of that "growth" isn't actually new people watching. It’s Nielsen changing how they count out-of-home viewers and adding "Big Data" into the mix. Basically, the industry just got better at counting the guy watching the game at a Buffalo Wild Wings.
The SEC vs. The World (and the Big Ten)
Honestly, the SEC is just a different beast now. With Texas and Oklahoma fully integrated, the "SEC on ABC" window has become a monster. ABC averaged 6.9 million viewers per game in 2025. That is up 19% from the previous year. If you look at the top ten most-watched teams from this past regular season, eight of them come from the SEC.
Eight.
Only Ohio State managed to crack that top list for the Big Ten, coming in at number four with about 6.6 million viewers. The rest of the list is a sea of crimson and orange.
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- Alabama: 8.49 million (No. 1)
- Texas: 7.55 million (No. 2)
- Georgia: 7.48 million (No. 3)
- Oklahoma: 6.47 million (No. 5)
Texas A&M even snuck in there at number ten. It’s getting a little ridiculous. People keep talking about "competitive balance," but the TV audience is signaling that they really only care about two super-conferences and a handful of legacy brands. Even Florida State, despite a rough year, was the only school outside the "Power Two" to crack the top 15 in viewership.
Why the 12-Team Playoff ratings are actually a warning sign
You’d think a bigger playoff would mean bigger ratings, right? Not exactly.
The 2025 College Football Playoff first round actually saw a 7% drop in viewership. The four games averaged about 9.9 million viewers, which is down from the 10.6 million the debut year pulled. The culprit? The NFL.
When you move games to late December and go head-to-head with the Packers and the Bears, you’re gonna get bruised. The NFL game on Fox that Saturday drew 21.3 million viewers, while the Oregon vs. James Madison blowout on TNT/TBS only pulled 4.4 million. That is a bloodbath.
It turns out that even a "playoff" tag isn't enough to save a lopsided game on a secondary cable network. The Alabama vs. Oklahoma game on Friday night was the outlier, hitting 14.9 million viewers because it stayed on the main ABC/ESPN flagship and avoided the pro-football buzzsaw.
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The Streaming Ghost in the Machine
We have to talk about Tubi and Peacock. Fox put the Ohio State vs. Michigan game on Tubi this year, and about 19% of that audience was under the age of 34. On the traditional cable broadcast? That number is way lower.
Streaming is where the young people are, obviously, but it’s fragmenting the data. TNT Sports’ debut Big 12 package only averaged 337,000 viewers. That sounds pathetic until you realize those numbers grew by 87% once they hit conference play. It’s a slow burn. The CW is also quietly winning, with their ACC and Pac-12 games up 10% this year. They found a million viewers for a Baylor-SMU game in September.
The Reality of the "4 Million Club"
In 2025, there were 67 regular-season games that broke the 4 million viewer mark. That’s the benchmark for a "hit" in this industry.
The most-watched game of the entire year? Ohio State at Michigan. It pulled 18.42 million viewers.
The second? Texas at Ohio State at 16.62 million.
What’s interesting is that the "middle class" of college football is disappearing. You either have a game that draws 6 million people or you have a game that draws 400,000. There isn't much in between anymore. Programs like Oklahoma State and Washington State are seeing their averages hover around 400k to 500k, while the big boys are consistently in the multi-millions.
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What this means for the next TV deal
The "SEC on ABC" experiment is clearly working for Disney. They owned 71% of the Saturday windows in 2025. But the Big Ten is struggling on NBC and CBS. NBC’s Big Ten viewership was actually down 2% this year.
If you are a fan of a team like Iowa or West Virginia, these ratings are a bit of a nightmare. The networks are seeing that "brands" drive the bus. If your team doesn't have a massive national following, you’re increasingly likely to end up on a streaming-only platform or a Friday night slot on FS1.
Actionable Insights for the Savvy Fan
If you want to understand where the sport is heading, stop looking at the AP Poll and start looking at the Saturday 3:30 PM ET window.
- Watch the Friday Night shift: Fox is moving more high-value games to Friday to avoid the Saturday clutter. These games averaged 2.3 million viewers this year—expect that to double in 2026.
- The "Group of Five" trap: James Madison and Tulane getting blown out in the playoff killed the ratings for those windows. Expect the committee to feel "indirect pressure" from networks to prioritize bigger fanbases for those at-large bids.
- Check your subscriptions: If your team isn't in the top 20 of viewership, start getting used to platforms like TNT, TBS, and potentially more games behind a Peacock or ESPN+ paywall. The "free" broadcast era is shrinking to only include the Alabamas and Michigans of the world.
College football is more popular than ever, but it's also more consolidated than ever. The numbers don't lie: we are moving toward a world where 15 teams matter to the networks, and everyone else is just content to fill the gaps between commercials.