Supporters of keeping Group of 5 teams out of the College Football Playoff have another arrow in their quiver to argue with.
According to a recent post by ESPN, there’s a huge disparity in television viewers for CFP games involving only Power 4 teams and games with Tulane and James Madison.
Nearly 15 million people watch the Friday night game between Alabama and Oklahoma, with a peak viewership of 16.4 million viewers.
The Saturday morning slugfest between Miami and Texas A&M had 14.8 million viewers and peak of 19.3 million.
Ole Miss and Tulane played Saturday afternoon and drew 6.2 million viewers with a peak of 8.3 million. The Saturday night game between James Madison and Oregon drew even fewer viewers, with a 4.4 million and 7.2 million at its peak.
The '25-'26 #CFBPlayoff First Round delivered 9.9M avg. viewers via ABC/ESPN & @TNTSportsUS
🏈 @AlabamaFTBL–@OU_Football | 14.9M viewers
🏈 @CanesFootball–@AggieFootball | 14.8M
🏈 @GreenWaveFB–@OleMissFB | 6.2M
🏈 @JMUFootball–@oregonfootball | 4.4M pic.twitter.com/S7y1Ng1kE7— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) December 23, 2025
But before we jump to using this a proof that no teams outside the Power 4 conferences and Notre Dame should be allowed in the CFP, let’s put those numbers into context.
Numbers into context
First, not all of the games were shown on ESPN. Tulane and James Madison’s games were on TNT and HBO Max. Most of us can find ESPN channels a lot easier and so much is on the ESPN networks that we automatically assume big games are on there.
Some of you may even leave your TV on ESPN like some people do with the news channels. The games being on a network more known for reruns of The Big Bang Theory than college football had an impact.
Second, the first two CFP games didn’t have much competition for alternate viewing. The second two had NFL games as direct competition.
Even if you replace Tulane and James Madison with Notre Dame and (insert your favorite snubbed team here), there’ll be viewers who watch NFL instead of CFP games.
Similar numbers in 2024
Last year’s CFP games that aired on TNT in the same time slots as this year produced similar numbers to this year and both games featured big name programs.
Clemson and Texas averaged 8.9 million viewers (9.5 million at its peak). SMU and Penn State had 6.6 million. Both games were in direct competition with NFL games, too.
Conclusion
The viewership numbers are already being weaponized in arguments to keep Group of 5 teams out of the CFP.
However, when put into context, the argument doesn’t hold up.
Just because Ole Miss and Oregon won fairly easy doesn’t mean that if the games were more competitive, or had a blue blood opponent that it would draw more viewers.
It didn’t last year, the first time this scenario of competing against NFL games, and it didn’t this year. NFL is king for a reason and folks at TNT are going to lose that battle every time.
Really, the only way to beat the NFL with CFP games is to have a smaller school upset, or come close, a big name program.
