Getty Image / Kevin C. Cox
With the 2023 College Football season behind us and daily drama unfolding on the coaching carousel and transfer portal side of things, an interesting chart has popped up showing how TV viewership is dominated by just 18 teams.
A viral tweet from Tony Altimore shows Nielsen TV ratings from 2016 through 2023. So this isn’t just the past season’s numbers and thus isn’t heavily skewed by anomalous matchups.
What the numbers show is these 18 teams account for 50% of all College Football viewership on TV: Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, Michigan, Clemson, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, LSU, Penn State, Texas, Auburn, Florida, Wisconsin, Washington, Florida State, Tennessee, USC, and Oregon.
HIGHLY CONCENTRATED CFB VIEWERSHIP: 📺🏈
2016-23 Total Nielsen-Rated ViewersCheck this out, gang:
50% of football viewership comes from just 18 teamsIn updating TV data to add in this year, I continue to be amazed by how heavily concentrated viewers are among so few brands pic.twitter.com/F5P1zG8ZlM
— Tony Altimore (@TJAltimore) January 24, 2024
What jumps out first here is how the SEC just got a lot stronger by the additions of Texas and Oklahoma. That takes the Southeastern Conference from 6 of the 18 teams to 8, including 7 of the top 12.
It’s also evident the Florida State Seminoles are doing the right thing by attempting to cut ties with the ACC. The only other ACC team in the top 18 is Clemson.
Chicken or the egg?
It is worth considering why these teams are on this chart. First and foremost, it’s because they are given high-visibility TV slots and that’s because these programs remain consistently good, have the largest fan bases, and play high-profile matchups.
There are a lot of folks on X complaining ‘they’re only on the chart because they’re always on TV’ yet the networks wouldn’t put these programs in primetime TV slots unless the programs delivered results, which they consistently do.
It would be interesting to see how Alabama has impacted College Football viewership, not just from their perspective but with regards to say Tennessee and Auburn playing big time matchups against the Crimson Tide. The same goes for FSU-Clemson whose annual matchup draws in big numbers.
For those curious, the next 5 teams on the list for having the highest College Football viewership according to Nielsen ratings would be Texas A&M, Michigan State, Iowa, OK State, and TCU according to Altimore.