How Big Will College Football Get?

UPDATE: The data are in: 33.4 million viewers. The most-watched cable program of all time.

Tonite marks the culmination of the first top division college football tournament. How big will college football get?

I'd suggest paying attention to the numbers below to get a sense whether its continued financial growth will be really big or really, really big. These are the audience sizes for the top-watched programs ever on US cable networks. Yes, they are all sports events on ESPN.

For comparison, last year's Super Bowl had an audience of 111 million. Last night's NFL playoff games had an estimated audience of 40 million. And last year's NCAA basketball championship had an audience of 21.2 million.

How big will college football be? Tonite TV viewership should help to answer that question.

Rank	Date	Program	Network	Viewers (000s)
1.	01/01/2015	CFB/Sugar Bowl: Alabama-Ohio St.	ESPN	28,271
2.	01/01/2015	CFB/Rose Bowl: Oregon-Florida St.	ESPN	28,164
3.	01/10/2011	CFB/BCS Champ: Oregon-Auburn	ESPN	27,316
4.	01/07/2013	CFB/BCS Champ: Alabama-Notre Dame	ESPN	26,380
5.	01/06/2014	CFB/BCS Champ: Florida St.-Auburn	ESPN	25,572
6.	01/09/2012	CFB/BCS Champ: Alabama-LSU	ESPN	24,214
7.	10/05/2009	NFL MNF: Green Bay-Minnesota	ESPN	21,839
8.	01/03/2015	NFL Wild Card: Arizona-Carolina	ESPN	21,678
9.	11/30/2009	NFL MNF: New England-New Orleans	ESPN	21,402
10.	01/01/2011	CFB/Rose Bowl: TCU-Wisconsin	ESPN	20,558