• by Wayne Friedman , December 11, 2024

Like the NFL, college football has been seeing its own TV viewing gains this season -- up 6% year-over-year to 154 billion minutes viewed through 14 weeks of the regular season, according to Nielsen.

The top demographic on the rise has been adults 18-34 -- 11% more year-over-year.

The top five college football teams in viewing -- with a minimum of at least four nationally televised games -- are the University of Georgia (with 8.6 million viewers); Ohio State University (6.8 million); University of Alabama (6.6 million); University of Texas (6.4 million) and University of Tennessee (5.4 million).

Since August 24, a total of $1.2 billion in national TV advertising spend/promotional value has gone into college football, according to EDO Ad EnGage -- virtually the same as a year ago.

Total advertising/on-air promotion airings this year are at 38,169 -- versus 33,529 a year ago.

Networks include CBS, ABC, Fox, ESPN, ESPN2, Fox Sports 2, NBC, CNBC, The CW, and truTV.

Other top college football teams are the University of Michigan (with 5.2 million viewers), Texas A&M University (4.9 million), Louisiana State University (4.8 million), University of Kentucky (4.5 million) and University of Florida (4.3 million).