Ratings Roundup: CFP National Championship Game Flops; NFL Wildcard Weekend Posts Huge Success By Kristian Hernandez, Assistant Editor
Friday, January 11, 2019 - 11:24 am
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Ratings roundup is a rundown of rating news from the past week and is derived from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week's edition, the National Championship game posted the worst ratings in the CFP era, NFL Wildcard weekend improves over last year's showing, First Take's live episode in Dallas posted a double-digit increase, YES Network concluded the year as the most-watched RSN in the nation, ESPN reflects on their 2018 cable presence, and the Golf Channel came close to history.
Photo by Scott Clarke/ESPN Images
Clemson Blowout Diminishes Viewership on College Football's Greatest Stage
The 2019 College Football Playoff Nationa Championship game had a bit of an entertaining start, but when Clemson began pulling away, ratings dipped dramatically.
According to SportsMediaWatch, Monday's Clemson-Alabama College Football Playoff National Championship had a 13.8 rating and 25.28 million viewers across ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and ESPNEWS, down 12% in ratings and 11% in viewership from Alabama-Georgia last year (15.6, 28.44M). Compared to the same Clemson-Alabama matchup in 2017, ratings fell 3% but viewership increased a fraction of a percent (14.2, 25.27M). Prior figures do not include ESPNEWS, which was not a Nielsen rated network from 2016-18.
Clemson's blowout win, which peaked with 27.84 million during the first half, ranks as the third-least watched national championship in 11 years - since LSU-Ohio State on Fox in 2008 (23.1M) - and the seventh-least watched in the CFP/Bowl Championship Series era (21 games).
The 13.8 rating is tied as the second-lowest for any national championship in the CFP/BCS era, matching Miami-Nebraska in 2002 and ahead of USC-Oklahoma in 2005 (13.7).
Clemson-Alabama completed a clean sweep of declines for the College Football Playoff. All three games declined double-digits from last year, when the semifinals took place on New Year's Day. Notably, the national championship had a lower rating and fewer viewers than last year's New Year's Day Rose Bowl, a playoff semifinal (Georgia-Oklahoma: 13.7, 26.91M).
It should be noted that none of this year's three games were competitive, with Clemson's two wins decided by four touchdowns.
Despite the declines, Monday's game still earned a larger audience than every game of last year's World Series, every game of the last two NBA Finals, and every game of the last three NCAA men's basketball tournaments. It trounced last year's Villanova-Michigan men's basketball championship on Turner Sports, which had a 9.2 and 16.0 million.
Across ESPN and ESPN2, Monday's game had a 7.8 rating in adults 18-49 (-12%), a 6.3 in adults 18-34 (-16%) and an 8.8 in adults 25-54 (-11%).
Although the game received negative feedback, the game had some highlights. The ESPN MegaCast generated a Nielsen reported audience of 25.2 million viewers. Also, on Championship Monday, 941 million minutes were consumed across ESPN Digital platforms (game and non-game), up 10% from last season's Championship Monday.
First Weekend of NFL Playoffs Makes 113.6 Million Fans Go Wild
The NFL has disclosed their ratings of the first four games of the NFL postseason during Wildcard weekend. Saturday's slate brought in 52.3 million fans, with Indianapolis vs. Houston with 22.8 million on ABC, ESPN, and ESPN Digital and Dallas vs. Seattle with 29.5 million on Fox and Fox Digital. On Sunday's day two, 61.3 million fans watched the doubleheader with 25.4 million for Los Angeles vs. Baltimore and 35.9 million for Philadelphia vs. Chicago. The total amount for both days accumulated to 113.6 million, an average of 28.4 million per game and an increase of 12% respectively compared to last year's 2018 Wild Card weekend average (25.3 million). On digital, the overall 2019 Wild Card average across 4 games is a 496K AMA, up 139% versus last year's 2018 Wild Card average (208K).
Here are more numbers from each individual game:
On Fox, Cowboys-Seahawks was the most streamed NFL playoff game ever on Fox digital with 580,445 average minute audience and 123% more than last year's Panthers-Saints matchup (261,000). It was also the most-watched NFL Wildcard game in Fox Deportes history with 106,000 viewers
Sunday's Chargers-Ravens AFC Wild Card game had a 15.4 rating on CBS, up 2% in ratings and a fraction of a percent in viewership from last year (Bills-Jaguars: 15.2, 25.3M), but down 7% and 12% respectively from 2016 (Dolphins-Steelers: 17.5, 29.9M) (SMW)
ESPN's showing of Colts-Texans earned a 13.5 rating. The Colts' easy win, which peaked with 26.4 million from 7-7:30 PM ET, ranks third out of the five Wild Card games that have aired on ESPN. It was just the second of those five to post an increase over the previous year. Across all networks, it was the fifth-least watched NFL playoff game in the past decade. Three of the bottom five have aired on the ESPN family of networks, with the caveat that NFL assigns ESPN the weakest playoff window each year (SMW)
Eagles-Bears on NBC averaged 35.89 million TV-only viewers, ranking as NBC's most-watched NFL Wild Card on record, topping the prior high set by the Seattle Seahawks-Houston Oilers AFC Wild Card game which went to overtime on Jan. 3, 1988 (35.86 million). NBC's Wild Card viewership was up 15% from the game in the same time slot last year (31.1 million, Panthers-Saints on Fox). The game peaked at 45.1 million viewers for the exciting conclusion from 7:45-7:54 p.m. ET. Sunday's game (4:41 p.m.-7:54 p.m. ET) registered a national TV household rating of 19.7/38. On NBC Sports
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Ratings Roundup: CFP National Championship Game Flops; NFL Wildcard Weekend Posts Huge Success By Kristian Hernandez, Assistant Editor 
