No. 1 Alabama’s victory over No. 5 Georgia unsurprisingly generated huge viewership for ESPN and ABC.
ESPN said Tuesday that Alabama’s 41-34 win over the Bulldogs averaged 12 million viewers and peaked at just over 14.1 million. That number was no doubt helped by Georgia’s surprising comeback after Alabama took an early 28-0 lead. If the Crimson Tide had sailed, the viewership would have been significantly smaller. Instead, Georgia wore down over the course of the second half and even briefly took the lead with less than three minutes left before a 75-yard touchdown pass from Jalen Milroe to Ryan Williams.
The network said the game was the most-watched game on any ESPN network since 2017 and the most-watched regular-season primetime game on any network since that season. The win moved Alabama to the No. 1 spot in the AP Top 25 on Sunday, while the Crimson Tide was ranked No. 4 at the start. Georgia fell from 2nd to 4th place.
The game would have ranked second in viewership among all regular season games in 2023, trailing only Michigan’s win over Ohio State in the final week of the regular season. That battle of undefeated teams attracted just over 19 million viewers. The second most-watched regular-season game a season ago was Colorado’s loss at Oregon. The Buffaloes entered that game undefeated and were the talk of college football in Deion Sanders’ first season in Boulder.
ESPN and ABC’s huge viewership numbers are why the network paid so much to have exclusive broadcast rights to SEC games in 2024 and beyond. Alabama and Georgia each participated in seven of the season’s 100 most-watched college football games in 2023. After showing ACC, Pac-12 and Big 12 games on Saturday nights a season ago, ABC is now exclusively showing SEC games in prime time. and will have another chance at big viewership in less than three weeks when Georgia travels to Texas and Alabama visits Tennessee. One of those two top-five matchups will almost certainly be in prime time.