Under coach Curt Cignetti, the Indiana Hoosiers went 16-0 and were must-see TV en route to winning the College Football Playoff National Championship. Patrick Smith / Getty Images
Curt Cignetti doesn’t just win. Indiana’s coach can also produce a blockbuster TV event.
More than 30 million viewers watched the 16-0 Hoosiers beat Miami in Monday night’s College Football Playoff National Championship Game on ESPN, the largest TV audience for a college football game in more than a decade. It marked a 36 percent increase from last year’s Ohio State-Notre Dame title game (22.1 million.)
With an audience of 30.1 million viewers, Indiana-Miami became the most-watched CFP title game since the first one in 2015, when Ohio State beat Oregon in the first year of the four-team Playoff. It was also the most-watched non-NFL sports event since the Chicago Cubs’ Game 7 win in the 2016 World Series.
This year’s championship game was the first since Nielsen began using its new Big Data + Panel methodology, which has produced increased viewership numbers for many sports and live events. An ESPN spokesperson said the broadcast was still up 27 percent year-over-year using Nielsen’s previous methodology.
Indiana became a ratings magnet throughout the postseason. The Hoosiers’ 13-10 win over Ohio State in the Dec. 6 Big Ten championship game drew the highest viewership on record (18.3 million) for that game; their 38-3 rout of Alabama in the Rose Bowl quarterfinal was the most-watched CFP game (24.3 million) in two years; and their non-competitive (56-22) semifinal against Oregon still drew more viewers (18 million) than the Miami-Ole Miss thriller the night before (15.8 million).
Last year’s Ohio State-Notre Dame title game, the first of the 12-team era, saw a 12 percent decrease from Michigan-Washington the year before, which drew concern that the game’s new later date — two weeks deeper into January — could be problematic. But in 2025, that date was also Inauguration Day.
Next year’s national championship game is even later, on Jan. 25, 2027.
The 2025 season was the last of the CFP’s original 12-year deal with ESPN. Next season will be the first in a new six-year agreement that will see the national championship game air on ABC.