Can there be too much football on TV? It's a question that's increasingly being asked, with the noticeable dip in viewership for both the NFL playoffs and the college football national championship, wrote Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk.
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While football remains king in terms of American sports, it seems the sheer volume of games is starting to wear on fans.
Take Monday night's Ohio State-Notre Dame game, for example. According to Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal, the 2024 title game saw a 12 percent drop in viewership compared to last year's Michigan-Washington showdown. The total audience for this year's game was 22.1 million, a significant drop from the 25 million who tuned in the year before.
This drop in viewership comes amid a major shift in how the college football postseason is structured. With the introduction of the expanded 12-team playoff, fans are now treated to five straight days of postseason action, stretching from Thursday, January 9 to Monday, January 13.
But here's the catch: that much football in such a short span seems to be starting to lose its luster. The NFL's Wild Card round, for example, saw a 9.5 percent dip in audience, and the following weekend saw another 8.5 percent drop in the Divisional Round compared to last year.
When college football's national title game used to be wrapped up by New Year's Day, it felt like the perfect ending to the season. Now, with more playoff games on both the college and NFL sides, the overlap is overwhelming. For some fans, the volume of games is starting to dilute the excitement, and the numbers are showing it.
It turns out, even the most die-hard football fans can have their limits. Maybe in today's crowded sports calendar, less truly is more.
