'College GameDay' Posted Largest Regular-Season Audience in Show History in 2024

The ESPN stalwart met the moment in a year to remember for college football writ large.

The set of College GameDay in University Park, Pa. on Nov. 2, 2024. / Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Unless you were an attorney tasked with hashing out the House v. NCAA settlement—in which case, congratulations on your giant paycheck—the year 2024 was an exciting one for college football writ large.

The summer release of NCAA Football 25 built considerable excitement leading up to the season. Realignment introduced just enough intriguing new matchups to distract fans from its dubious ethics. The 12-team College Football Playoff system, even before properly kicking off, looks like a winner in the short term.

And that's to say nothing of the action on the field, which may have made for the most exciting season of the 2020s. It seems appropriate, then, that ESPN announced Tuesday that College GameDay had posted its most-viewed regular season in history.

"During the record-breaking 2024 season,GameDay averaged 2.2 million viewers for its best season ever—a 6% increase from 2023 and 5% over the prior season high," the network wrote in its release.

What factored into the increase? ESPN's lucrative deal with the expanded SEC probably helped. Ex-Alabama coach Nick Saban was terrific in his first year as a panelist, and former West Virginia specialist Pat McAfee has shown signs of settling in after mixed early reviews. The show also deftly balanced its tentpole trips with off-the-beaten path excursions to Berkeley, Calif. and Bloomington, Ind.

However, there's no substitute for the excitement good college football generates—and that was available in spades this year.

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