In the 1990s, CBS owned the rights to the NFL's NFC package for what amounted to pennies on the dollar. With the more popular of the two New York teams, Philadelphia, Washington, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit and the NFL's two biggest fan bases -- the Cowboys and the Packers -- in TV terms, the NFC was the varsity to the AFC's JV. The conferences played that way on the field, too: NFC teams won every Super Bowl from the 1984 season through '96.
So, CBS was paying the NFL $265 million a year for the NFC rights, which seemed like a lot until Fox offered $400 million. The NFC rights went to Fox, and CBS quickly learned that however much it cost to have the NFL, not having the NFL was even costlier. Four years later, CBS bought pack in, purchasing the AFC rights... for $500 million.
As Bryan Curtis outlined for The Ringer in 2018, those moves changed sports television, television, and sports forever.
Two and a half decades later, history repeated itself.
CBS owned the SEC's Game of the Week package from 2008-23 for a paltry $55 million a year. It was the biggest bargain in sports television.
“The $55 million is burned in my brain. It never went up,” former Florida president Bernie Machen told Yahoo last year. “They just dug their heels in. They would not move. I don’t know why. We thought CBS would fold. We thought they would get competitive. We thought at the end of the contract they’d fear losing us and it would bump.”
In 2020, Disney, which already owned all of the SEC's rights except the Game of the Week, paid the conference $300 million to go all-in with ABC/ESPN. Two years later CBS, to make up for losing the SEC's best game each week, purchased the rights to the Big Ten's second or third best game at $350 million a year.
We're now a year into college football's new television reality, and the result could not be more clear. In going all-in with the SEC, ABC has absolutely hammered the competition, so much so that the $300 million the network pays now feels laughably low. Airing SEC games morning, noon and night most Saturdays, ABC accounted for more than two-thirds of the most watched games in the 2024 regular season.
Appearances by network
ABC -- 34
Fox -- 7
CBS -- 4
ESPN -- 3
NBC -- 2
Compare that to numbers to the same point in 2023, where ABC (15 games) held a mild lead over CBS and Fox (13 apiece).
Likewise, getting all the way into bed with ABC has been great business for the SEC. The conference accounted for 61 total appearances (100 total) in the top 50 games, led by Georgia's 10, Alabama's eight and Texas's seven.
In 2023, the SEC barely edged out the Big Ten, 37-35.
Beyond the top-line number, 15 of the SEC's 16 teams made at least one appearance on the list. (Vanderbilt, the SEC outlier, had their thrilling Alabama upset air on the unrated SEC Network). Meanwhile, eight of the 18 Big Ten schools did not crack the top 50.
The numbers highlighted how much the Big Ten struggled to highlight its West Coast wing in Year 1 of life as a coast-to-coast conference. No. 1 Oregon made the list only twice, its home game with Ohio State and the Big Ten Championship, as did USC. Washington and UCLA did not crack the list at all.
Appearances by conference
61 -- SEC
22 -- Big Ten
9 -- ACC
6 -- Big 12
In the zero-sum game of television, the SEC's gain was the ACC and Big 12's loss. ABC's all-in deal with the SEC gobbled up most of the network's real estate, pushing the ACC and Big 12 to ESPN (and, in the Big 12's case, Fox games airing after Big Noon).
Florida State made two appearances on the list, as two large audiences tuned in to watch the defending ACC champions' season go up in flames as soon as it began, against Georgia Tech in the Week 0 season-opener and versus Boston College on Labor Day. Both games aired on ESPN.
In the Big 12, Colorado led the way with three appearances, although only one came in a Big 12 game -- the Buffs' 37-21 loss to Kansas.
For all four power conferences, the most-watched games of their respective seasons was the conference championship game.
Appearances by program
10 -- Georgia
8 -- Alabama
7 -- Texas
6 -- Ohio State
5 -- LSU, Texas A&M
4 -- Florida, Michigan, Oklahoma, Tennessee
3 -- Auburn, Colorado, South Carolina
2 -- Arkansas, Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Indiana, Kentucky, Nebraska, Ole Miss, Oregon, Penn State, USC
Overall, 58 games topped the 4 million mark. All data via Sports Media Watch.
1. Georgia-Texas, SEC Championship -- 16.6 million (ABC)
2. Georgia-Texas -- 13.19 million (ABC)
3. Michigan-Ohio State -- 12.3 million (Fox)
4. Georgia-Alabama -- 11.99 million (ABC)
5. Penn State-Oregon, Big Ten Championship -- 10.5 million (CBS)
6. Alabama-Tennessee -- 10.23 million (ABC)
7. Tennessee-Georgia -- 9.96 million (ABC)
8. Ohio State-Penn State -- 9.77 million (Fox)
9. Ohio State-Oregon -- 9.6 million (NBC)
10. Texas-Michigan -- 9.19 million (Fox)
11. Texas-Texas A&M -- 9.45 million (ABC)
12. Indiana-Ohio State -- 9.32 million (Fox)
13. LSU-USC -- 8.62 million (ABC)
14. Georgia Tech-Georgia -- 8.47 million (ABC)
15. Notre Dame-Texas A&M -- 7.92 million (ABC)
16. Alabama-LSU -- 7.9 million (ABC)
17. Texas-Oklahoma -- 7.63 million (ABC)
18. Clemson-Georgia -- 7.58 million (ABC)
19. Auburn-Alabama -- 7.16 million (ABC)
20. Georgia-Ole Miss -- 7.08 million (ABC)
21. Alabama-Oklahoma -- 6.98 million (ABC)
22. Florida-Georgia -- 6.97 million (ABC)
23. Iowa State-Arizona State, Big 12 Championship -- 6.9 million (ABC)
24. Georgia-Kentucky -- 6.6 million (ABC)
25. Miami-Florida -- 6.35 million (ABC)
26. USC-Michigan -- 6.32 million (CBS)
27. Tennessee-Oklahoma -- 6.27 million (ABC)
28. Colorado-Kansas -- 6.22 million (Fox)
29. LSU-Florida -- 6.02 million (ABC)
30. Clemson-SMU, ACC Championship -- 6 million (ABC)
30. South Carolina-Alabama -- 6 million (ABC)
32. Nebraska-Ohio State -- 5.96 million (Fox)
33. Tennessee-Arkansas -- 5.93 million (ABC)
34. Colorado-Nebraska -- 5.67 million (NBC)
35. Texas A&M-South Carolina -- 5.56 million (ABC)
36. Missouri-Alabama -- 5.54 million (ABC)
37. LSU-Texas A&M -- 5.06 million (ABC)
38. Oklahoma-Auburn -- 5.04 million (ABC)
39. Alabama-Wisconsin -- 5.03 million (Fox)
40. Florida State-Georgia Tech -- 4.99 million (ESPN)
41. LSU-South Carolina -- 4.94 million (ABC)
42. Auburn-Georgia -- 4.93 million (ABC)
43. Texas A&M-Florida -- 4.8 million (ABC)
44. North Dakota State-Colorado -- 4.76 million (ESPN)
45. Texas-Arkansas -- 4.56 million (ABC)
46. Kentucky-Texas -- 4.47 million (ABC)
47. Iowa-Ohio State -- 4.46 million (CBS)
48. Boston College-Florida State -- 4.44 million (ESPN)
49. Michigan-Indiana -- 4.39 million (CBS)
50. Mississippi State-Ole Miss -- 4.33 million (ABC)
We'll be back next month to rank the 100 most-watched games of the entire season.