College football ratings are down; should networks be concerned?

A thoughtful college football viewership analysis by The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel, published Tuesday, has been circulating in sports media circles. The top-line figures don’t look great for the sport through the first eight weeks. Average viewership is down by 6% for games airing on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and ESPN. Last season, games on those networks averaged 3.5 million viewers through Week 8; this season, those same networks are averaging 3.3 million viewers. If it weren’t for recent Nielsen changes, which Mandel reports have generally bumped baseline viewership by 3.4%, the decline could be even steeper.