No. 1 Alabama’s win over No. 5 Georgia averages 12 million viewers

No. 1 Alabama’s win over No. 5 Georgia unsurprisingly delivered a big audience for ESPN and ABC.

ESPN said Tuesday that Alabama’s 41-34 victory over the Bulldogs averaged 12 million viewers and peaked at just over 14.1 million. That number was undoubtedly helped by Georgia’s stunning comeback after Alabama jumped out to an early 28-0 lead. If the Crimson Tide cruised, viewership would have been significantly lower. Instead, Georgia chipped away over the course of the second half and even briefly took the lead with less than three minutes to go before a 75-yard TD pass from Jalen Milroe to Ryan Williams.

The network said the game was the most-watched game on any ESPN network since 2017 and the most-watched regular-season primetime game on any network since that season. The win pushed Alabama to No. 1 in the AP Top 25 on Sunday as the Crimson Tide were ranked No. 4 at kickoff. Georgia dropped from No. 2 to No. 4.

The game would have ranked second in viewership among all regular-season games in 2023 behind only Michigan’s win over Ohio State in the final week of the regular season. That battle of unbeaten teams drew just over 19 million viewers. The second-most watched regular season game a season ago was Colorado’s blowout loss at Oregon. The Buffaloes entered that game undefeated and the talk of college football in Deion Sanders’ first season in Boulder.

The massive viewership number for ESPN and ABC is why the network paid so much to have the exclusive broadcast rights to SEC games in 2024 and beyond. Alabama and Georgia were each involved in seven of the 100 most-watched college football games of the season in 2023. After showing ACC, Pac-12 and Big 12 games on Saturday nights a season ago, ABC is now exclusively showing SEC games in primetime and will have another opportunity for a big viewership number in less than three weeks when Georgia travels to Texas and Alabama visits Tennessee. One of those two top-five matchups will assuredly be in primetime.