Alabama Football: Crimson Tide’s TV ratings are staggering
By Ronald Evans
Staggering is a too big word maybe, but even modestly stated, the TV audience driven by Alabama Football is impressive. Based on data from the 2022 season, it can be argued the Alabama Football brand was the most powerful one in college football.
It is not hard to back up that bold claim. Thanks to USA Today’s Blake Toppmeyer we know that in the top ten most watched 2022 regular season games, Alabama Football was one of the teams in five of the ten games. No other CFB program can boast such clout.
Diving deeper into viewership data shows other impressive stats for the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Sports Media Watch provides viewing numbers for week zero through week 13 of the college football 2022 regular season, along with post-season numbers. In the regular season, 22 games had 5 million or more viewers. Alabama played in seven of the 22 games. Don’t forget the 2022 season was a ‘down year’ for the Crimson Tide. In a normal season, Alabama would not have gone into the Iron Bowl with two losses, with Auburn already having six losses. Despite all those losses, the 2022 Iron Bowl still drew 6.27M viewers. In a typical season for Alabama Football, the Iron Bowl would have given the Crimson Tide a sixth game in the top 10 most viewed games of the season.
Comparing the Alabama Football Post-Season
For Alabama football fans the 2022 post-season was pretty much a dud. The Crimson Tide did not play in the SEC Championship game and was not selected for the CFB Playoffs. Counting the conference championship games, the bowl games, and the CFB Playoff games, there were 13 games that drew audiences of 5M or more.
The thirteen games are listed below. Alabama’s ‘consolation’ Sugar Bowl against Kansas State did rather well considering. Among the Power Five championship games, the ACC Championship did not make the cut. The now-defunct Pac-12 Championship held on to reach the 5M threshold, but the ACC Championship drew only 3.47M viewers. The AAC Championship was not far behind the ACC at 2.7M.
- Peach Bowl, CFP Playoff Semi-Final; Georgia vs. Ohio State – 22.45M viewers
- Fiesta Bowl, CFB Playoff Semi-Final; TCU vs. Michigan – 21.7M
- CFB National Championship Game; Georgia vs. TCU – 17.22M
- SEC Championship Game; Georgia vs. LSU – 10.89M
- Big Ten Championship Game; Michigan vs. Purdue – 10.7M
- Rose Bowl; Penn State vs. Utah – 10.19M
- Big 12 Championship Game; Kansas State vs. TCU – 9.41M
- Sugar Bowl – Alabama vs. Kansas State – 9.14M
- Orange Bowl; Tennessee vs. Clemson – 8.57M
- Army vs. Navy – 6.94M
- Pac-12 Championship; Utah vs. USC – 5.97M
- Gator Bowl; Notre Dame vs. South Carolina – 5.71M
- Orlando (Cheez-It) Bowl; Florida State vs. Oklahoma – 5.4M
dark. Next. Greg Sankey with no sense of urgency
Like it or not, the viewership numbers are the data points that drive college football. It can be argued that Alabama Football has consistently been the most powerful brand in college sports.