Telecasts · College Football

CFP First round

Name: CFP First round
Creator: RatingsReference
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

2024-12-21 · College Football · ABC · ESPN

14,680,000

Nielsen avg audience · via press

final · figures last changed 2024-12-23

Published figures

JSON ↓

Nielsen1 figure

average audience

full telecast / TV only · final

press-attributed · Sports Media Watch

The new opening round of the College Football Playoff delivered two of the three-largest audiences of the season, led by Tennessee-Ohio State at a 7.1 rating and 14.68 million across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU — the second-largest audience of the season, behind only the Georgia-Texas SEC Championship (16.6M). Sports Media Watch, verbatim

14,680,000

1 press attribution · no provider-published figure · single source
press-attributed = reported by press citing the provider

On the record

NetworksABC · ESPN

TeamsOhio State · Tennessee

ScoreOhio State 42, Tennessee 17

ProvidersNielsen

Prior-season comparable

3,090,000

Utah Utes at Northwestern Wildcats

2023-12-23 · ABC · ESPN+ · Nielsen, final · Wikipedia

+375.1% vs the comparable

Site-computed: same league, same weekday, both on ABC, nearest to 52 weeks earlier; Nielsen average, final or revised.

Cite this figure

JSON ↓

CFP First round (2024-12-21): 14,680,000 average audience, Nielsen (press-attributed), final; published by Sports Media Watch, 2024-12-23, https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2024/12/cfp-first-round-viewership-espn-abc-tnt-ohio-state-tennessee-notre-dame/. Via RatingsReference, https://ratingsreference.com/telecast/cfb-ohio-state-tennessee-2024-12-21, accessed 2026-09-15.

Measurement era

Panel + Out-of-Home, since Sept 2020