Many sports would consider more than 25 million viewers an unqualified success, especially on cable, but the expectations are bit different for college football.

Monday’s Alabama/Clemson College Football Playoff National Championship Game drew a 15.0 final rating and 26.2 million viewers on the ESPN family of networks, down 19% in ratings and 23% in viewership from Ohio State/Oregon last year (18.6, 34.1M). Compared to the last BCS title game, Florida State/Auburn in 2014, ratings increased 1% (from 14.8) but viewership fell a fraction of a percent (from 26.21M to 26.18M).

ESPN alone pulled a 14.7 and 25.7 million, down 19% in ratings and 23% in viewership from last year (18.2, 33.4M) and up 2% and a fraction of a percent, respectively, from 2014 (14.4, 25.6M).

The Crimson Tide’s win ranks as the seventh-most watched program in cable television history, with ESPN’s solo coverage the sixth-most watched on a single network. ESPN has now aired the eight most-watched cable programs, all of them college football games. With that said, it also ranks just 12th in ratings and viewership out of the 18 national championship games since the formation of the BCS.

Among adults 18-49, ESPN’s telecast scored an 8.3 rating — down 25% from last year (11.0), down 5% from 2014 (8.7) and the title game’s lowest rating in the demo since LSU/Ohio State on FOX in 2008 (8.2). Even including the Megacast options, the game’s 8.4 in the demo was still an eight-year low.

The full College Football Playoff averaged an 11.0 rating and 19.7 million viewers on ESPN (not including simulcasts on other networks), down 31% in ratings and 34% in viewership from last year’s 16.0 and 29.8 million. All three games were down double-digits from last year’s comparable matchups, which still rank as the most-watched programs in cable history.

The playoff trailed last year’s three-game NCAA Tournament Final Four, which averaged a 12.2 and 21.7 million on CBS and Turner Sports. It also trailed last year’s six-game NBA Finals on ABC (11.6, 19.9M).

None of the above numbers include viewership on the WatchESPN app, which averaged 585,000 viewers per minute for Monday’s title game — up 23% from last year (475K) and the largest such audience on the platform.



(Mon. numbers from ESPN, with additional info from Programming Insider)