More than 154 billion minutes of live college football viewing on Disney, Fox, NBC and other networks this season
New York – December 11, 2024 – Nielsen today released for the first time its College Football Conference championship and overall team rankings based on total season average ratings, with the University of Georgia becoming the most-watched team in the 2024 regular season.
College football remains a huge draw for networks owned by Disney, Fox and NBCU, helping them rise in Nielsen and Media Distributor rankings this fall. This season, Disney, Fox, NBCU and other networks have broadcast more than 154 billion minutes of college football games.
Here are the league champions for the 2024 season based on average total viewership per game:
- AAC: Army
- ACC:Miami
- Big 12: Colorado
- Big Ten Ohio State University
- Association of American Universities: UTEP
- FBS Independent Notre Dame
- mountain west colorado state university
- Pac-12: Oregon State University
- SEC: Georgia
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Here are the 10 most-watched teams for the 2024 season (average total ratings per game):
- University of Georgia (8.6 million viewers)
- Ohio State University (6.8 million viewers)
- University of Alabama (6.6 million viewers)
- University of Texas (6.4 million viewers)
- University of Tennessee (5.4 million viewers)
- University of Michigan (5.2 million viewers)
- Texas A&M (4.9 million viewers)
- Louisiana State University (4.8 million viewers)
- University of Kentucky (4.5 million viewers)
- University of Florida (4.3 million viewers)
Georgia’s Week 5 game against Alabama (12 million viewers) and Week 8 game against USC Conference newcomer Texas (13 million viewers) boosted its popularity. The latter was the most-watched game of the regular season this season.
The Big Ten currently has 18 teams and is generally on par with the Southeastern European leagues in terms of audience attention. So it’s no surprise that Ohio State and Michigan are ranked No. 2 and No. 7, respectively, in the top 10. The two Big Ten teams had the best showings in their Week 14 matchup, which drew 12 million viewers.
The survey methodology tracks all college football telecasts during the 14 weeks of the regular season, but team rankings are limited to schools that have participated in at least four televised games. Because all conference-specific networks (such as the SEC Network) are not currently measured, all networks are excluded to maintain equality of comparison. Each game’s average viewership counts toward both teams’ ratings, so for example, the Georgia-Texas game in Week 8 counts toward both Georgia’s and Texas’ season averages Rate. All data are live + same-day program data based on Nielsen panels.
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Contact information
Jake Urbanski, Nielsen Communications
[email protected]
