Army-Navy Game Among Most Watched College Football Games of Season

The Army-Navy game, played on Saturday, was among the most viewed college football games of the 2024 season.

Dec 14, 2024; Landover, Maryland, USA; Army Black Knights running back Miles Stewart (22) puts his arm around Navy Midshipmen wide receiver Kroy Myers (0) after Navy won 31-13 in the 125th Army-Navy game at Northwest Stadium. / Danny Wild-Imagn Images

The Army-Navy game is regularly one of the most popular matchups of the college football season.

Played in between conference championship week and the start of Bowl Season, it is a standalone contest that fans of every program tune in to watch.

This year’s game was dominated by the Navy Midshipmen. They took home the Commander-in-Chief’s trophy with an impressive 31-13 victory over the Army West Point Black Knights in Landover, Maryland.

Despite the lopsided affair, it was among the most-watched games not only of the 2024 season but in the last three-plus decades of the rivalry game.

As shared by Navy Football on X, the annual rivalry game averaged 9.4 million viewers on CBS. That is the most for the Army-Navy game since at least 1990.

Just how popular was the game from a viewership standpoint? The only game that was aired on CBS this year that had more average viewers was the Big Ten Championship Game played between the Oregon Ducks and Penn State Nittany Lions, the No. 1 and No. 3 ranked teams in the nation at the time.

The game was the second-most watched game on CBS this year next to the Big Ten Championship Game https://t.co/64ZgYidinZ

— Navy Athletics (@NavyAthletics) December 18, 2024

That is a lot of people watching Navy quarterback Blake Horvath outduel Army star Bryson Daily to get his team its first win in the series since 2021, when it was held at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

The Black Knights had no answer for Horvath, who competed 4-of-9 passes for 107 yards and two touchdowns but was unstoppable on the ground. He gained 204 rushing yards on 25 attempts, adding two more scores.

Credit should also be given to the Midshipmen defense, who was able to keep the dynamic Daily in check.

He had only one interception coming into the season but threw three against Navy. It was also the first time this season that he failed to reach triple-digits for rushing yards and was only the second time that he failed to record a rushing touchdown in a game.

Navy will now close their season out against the Oklahoma Sooners in the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl.

Army will be playing against the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs in the Independence Bowl as a replacement for the Marshall Thundering Herd.