We’re well into basketball season and football season is officially in the books, King KenPom has you covered on the basketball stats so before signing day hits, I wanted to take a quick look into the numbers behind the most watched teams of college football from 2013.

Sports Media Watch published a handy guide the ratings for the last football season. Unfortunately there isn’t good data for the Big Ten Network, The Pac 12 Network and CBS Sports Network, but all of the other major players are there. With nearly 400 games televised I dug into the viewer totals to see which teams had the most eyeballs on them, which weekends had the most viewers and other interesting tidbits.

The 2013 Most Watched Team Was…

Alabama. Not a big surprise. I looked at the numbers three different ways and Alabama came out on top in all three measurements.

11 of Alabama’s 13 games made it to a network or an ESPN. Overall, nearly 81 MM people watched those 11 games. On a per game basis, Alabama’s 7.4 MM viewers topped the country, as well.

	Total Viewers			Average Viewers		Included Games
#1	Alabama	80.1MM		Alabama	7.4MM	11
#2	Auburn	78.2		Auburn	7.1	11
#3	Ohio State	77.1		Ohio State	6.4	12
#4	Florida State	72.3		Michigan	6.0	8
#5	Texas A&M	60.8		Michigan State	5.7	10

Iron Bowl champion Auburn was a close second in both measures, with Ohio State rounding out the top three. Florida State just missed the top five average, as did Texas A&M. Michigan State cracked the top five with a strong finish. The Big Ten Championship was the fifth most watched game overall and the Rose Bowl was second only to the Title game. The most surprising entry in the list turns out to be our very own Michigan Wolverines. There were 37 other teams that were on the included channels more than Michigan, but with 6 million viewers per showing, a lackluster season didn’t affect the interest in the team.

As anyone who has followed TV ratings knows, when and where you’re on can be as important as who is on. Here is a look at the average viewers by time and channel type:

	Early	Afternoon	Night	Late	Mid-Week	Thursday	Friday
Network	4.2MM	4.9	4.6
ESPN	2.9	2.8	3.7	2.1	1.6	2.3	1.6
ESPN2	1.0	1.2	1.9	0.9	0.7		1.3
Other	0.4	0.4	0.5	0.5	0.2	0.3	0.4
Mirror	3.5	4.6

*Games on Holidays (Sun/Mon of Labor day, Th/Fr of Thanksgiving), Bowl Games and Conference Championship games excluded.

**Mirrored games are the combined totals between ABC and ESPN2

Unsurprisingly the networks draw better crowds, whether it is the networks or the games themselves is tough to parse out, but there is a clear pecking order as you move down the ladder.

So with a slot average, you can begin to look at which teams do well versus their time slot.

	Team	Variance vs Slot
#1	Alabama	+2.8 MM viewers per game
#2	Michigan	+2.1
#3	Texas A&M	+1.8
#4	Auburn	+1.4
#5	Ohio State	+1.3

Michigan jumps even higher on the list once you factor in the real estate it was given. Michigan did a full 50% higher than an average matchup for the six non-BTN slots it was given (Minnesota was excluded as a mirrored game and no Bowl games were included). Despite a lackluster season, Michigan’s ratings continued to be some of the best in the country.

Looking at the worst performers there are surprising names. No one was interested in the Kiffin drama as USC was over half a million viewers below their slot expectation. Notre Dame was burdened by high expectations, falling 750,000 viewers per game below their slot average. Notre Dame had the best real estate in the country, with 12 games broadcast and a sky-high 4.7 MM viewers per game expected.

The Most Popular Weeks of College Football

With weekly peeks and valleys, the numbers of people watching college football on Saturdays increased as the season progressed in 2013.

Total Saturday viewers increases by about 250,000 viewers per week until Thanksgiving and conference championship weekend when the ratings jump 35%

The bowls continue to be huge draws, with nearly 3.8 million viewers per non-BCS bowls, which is roughly equal to an ESPN night game but with twice as many instances (30 versus 14 regular season). The bowls aren’t going away, folks.

The BCS bowls and the national title game drew an average of 17 MM viewers.

Oklahoma versus Alabama and the Rose Bowl were both right around the average while UCF/Baylor and OSU/Clemson balanced out the national title game. Based on this, I would estimate a national semi-final could draw somewhere close to 20 million viewers.

Dave Brandon Must Be Proud

The brand is strong. Despite a disappointing season on the field, viewers turned out to watch Michigan games at level on par with national title contenders and controversial Heisman trophy winners. If the data continues to be readily available, it will be interesting to see how a more successful season (hopefully 2014) impacts Michigan’s overall ratings.