No. 1 Alabama’s win over No. 5 Georgia unsurprisingly delivered big audiences for ESPN and ABC.
ESPN said this on 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 undoubtedly helped by Georgia’s stunning comeback after Alabama jumped out to an early 28-0 lead. If the Crimson Tide had continued, viewership would have been significantly lower. Instead, Georgia pulled away over the course of the second half, even briefly taking the lead with less than three minutes left before a 75-yard TD 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 pushed Alabama to No. 1 in the AP Top 25 on Sunday, while the Crimson Tide was ranked No. 4 at kickoff. Georgia fell from No. 2 to No. 4.
The game would have ranked second in viewership among all regular-season games in 2023, behind only Michigan’s win over Ohio State in the final week of the regular season. That battle between undefeated teams attracted just over 19 million viewers. The second-most-watched regular-season game a season ago was Colorado’s blowout loss at Oregon. The Buffaloes entered that game undefeated and there was talk of college football in Deion Sanders’ first season in Boulder.
The massive viewership for ESPN and ABC is why the network paid so much for the exclusive broadcast rights to SEC games in 2024 and beyond. Alabama and Georgia were each involved in seven of the 100 most-watched college football games of the season in 2023. After showing ACC, Pac-12 and Big 12 games on Saturday nights a season ago, ABC now exclusively shows SEC games in primetime and will get another shot at major viewership in less than three weeks when Georgia travels to Texas and Alabama visits Tennessee. One of those two top-five matchups will definitely take place in primetime.
