NFL Outpaces College Football Playoff

The NFL drew significantly larger audiences than College Football Playoff games during overlapping broadcasts, despite strong overall ratings for the playoff's first 12-team format.

The NFL's Texans-Chiefs and Steelers-Ravens games averaged 15.5 million and 15.4 million viewers, respectively, significantly surpassing concurrent College Football Playoff games on Saturday.
College Football Playoff games not competing with NFL broadcasts, such as Ohio State-Tennessee and Notre Dame-Indiana, drew stronger viewership, with 14.3 million and 13.4 million viewers respectively.
The first-round College Football Playoff games averaged 10.6 million viewers overall, exceeding the ratings for all but four college football games this season.
The rollout of the new 12-team College Football Playoff format marked a notable shift, with all four first-round games hosted on campus sites.
Despite lopsided scores in some matchups, the playoff games demonstrated strong viewership potential when not directly competing with NFL broadcasts.