College football has enjoyed a meteoric rise in popularity in recent years…up until now.
\n\nAccording to a report from Front Office Sports (FOS), “FBS game broadcasts are averaging 1.6 million viewers across all Nielsen-rated networks, which is down 11% compared to the first nine weeks of the 2025 season, according to audience measurement data Nielsen provided to Front Office Sports.”
\n\nGame 7 of the WNBA Finals earned a whopping 3.3 million viewers. The significance of that? That is more viewers than any college football game on cable earned on Saturday. Even more impressive, and worse for college football, is the fact that the WNBA game was broadcast on the relatively weaker USA Network, as opposed to ESPN, or any of the other large cable networks that carry college football.
\n\nTo what do we attribute this sudden reversal of ratings success? The Athletics’ Stewart Mandel has some theories.
\n\n“This season’s September nonconference schedule was notably less exciting than in recent years, and it shows in the data, Mandel wrote. “The 48 nonconference games so far on those five networks have averaged 3.2 million viewers, down 9 percent from last season. Whereas the 76 conference games declined by a more modest 4.9…
Original source: https://www.breitbart.com/sports/
