College Football Viewership Down 11% Through September vs. 2025

College football TV ratings are down double-digits through the first month of the season.

FBS game broadcasts are averaging 1.7 million viewers across all Nielsen-rated networks, which is down 11% compared to the first four weeks of the 2025 season, according to audience measurement data Nielsen provided to Front Office Sports.

Texas’s 24-23 comeback victory over Ohio State in Week 2 is the most-watched game of the season so far, drawing 14 million viewers on ABC, making it the most-watched regular-season matchup on an ESPN platform in a decade. But only one other game has topped 10 million viewers: Ole Miss’s 32-24 win over LSU in Lane Kiffin’s return to Oxford on Sept. 19.

Last season, four games in Week 1 alone topped 10 million viewers, led by an opening-weekend record audience of 16.6 million on Fox for Texas–Ohio State in Columbus, which was Arch Manning’s biggest start to date. 

In 2025, 11 regular-season games topped 10 million viewers.

Here are the 10 most-watched games of the 2025 season through September:

• Ohio State–Texas: 14 million (ABC)
• LSU–Ole Miss: 10.9 million (ABC)
• Texas-Tennessee: 9.7 million (ABC)
• Ole Miss–Florida: 8.3 million (ABC)
• Oklahoma-MIchigan: 8.2 million (Fox)
• Wisconsin–Notre Dame: 8.1 million (NBC)
• Alabama-Kentucky: 7.3 million (ABC)
• Florida State–Alabama: 7 million (ABC)
• Clemson-LSU: 5.8 million (ABC)
• Texas A&M–LSU: 5.7 million (ABC)

The 5.8 million viewers for LSU’s 51–10 blowout win over Clemson—the most anticipated season-opening matchup—came after a two-hour rain delay at kickoff.

The next two months could bring viewership gains for the 2026 season, though, as the SEC and Big Ten get into the heart of their conference schedules primarily on ABC and Fox, respectively. NBC will air No. 3 Miami vs. No. 4 Notre Dame on Nov. 7; last year’s matchup in South Florida that drew 10.8 million viewers on ABC was in Week 1.

On the pre-game front, ESPN’s College GameDay is averaging 2.83 million viewers through the first four weeks, which is 5% above the record 2025 season average of 2.7 million viewers. Weeks 2-4 each brought GameDay’s most-watched episode of that respective week in program history.