The inaugural season of the 12-team College Football Playoff had its share of highlights and criticisms from fans and the media.
The same can be said for the network carrying the games.
Nick Dawson, ESPN's vice president of college sports programming and acquisitions, said the first year was a success from the network's standpoint as it begins taking a deeper dive into possible improvements going into next season.
"A lot of unknowns doing something for the first time, so you'll always sort of assess after the fact, learn and potentially look at tweaks or adjustments we might consider for the future," Dawson said.
The 11 College Football Playoff games averaged 15.6 million viewers according to Nielsen, as audiences increased during each round. According to ESPN, viewers consumed nearly 36 billion minutes of live coverage, a 63% increase over last season's seven-game slate of the CFP title game and New Year's six bowl games.
The four first-round games averaged 10.6 million viewers, with the quarterfinals at 16.9 million. The semifinals averaged 19.2 million, and Ohio State's 34-23 victory over Notre Dame in Monday night's national championship game drew 22.1 million.
"Obviously there were a few more games, but to see that kind of jump in just overall consumption of the product is hopefully something we can build on moving forward," Dawson said.
There are some headwinds that ESPN will deal with under the current format. The semifinal audience decreased 17% from last season, but most of that was due to those games being on Jan. 1, 2024, compared to games on Thursday and Friday.
Notre Dame's 27-24 victory over Penn State in the Orange Bowl on Jan. 9, averaged 17.8 million. By comparison, the most-watched "Thursday Night Football" game on Amazon Prime Video this season was 17.29 million for Green Bay versus Detroit on Dec. 2.
The Jan. 10 Cotton Bowl -- where Ohio State defeated Texas 28-24 -- averaged 20.6 million and was the most-watched Friday telecast across all networks in four years.
Next year's semifinals should provide a better indicator if the Thursday/Friday format has staying power.
Ohio State-Notre Dame was a 12% drop from the 25 million who tuned in for the Michigan-Washington title game in 2024.
CFP games ended up being nine of the 10 most viewed this season, with three games averaging at least 20 million. The other was the Jan. 1 Rose Bowl, which always attracts a large audience.
What Dawson and ESPN are hoping for the most though are more competitive title games.
Since Alabama's 26-23 overtime victory over Georgia in 2018, the past seven title games have had an average margin of victory of 25.4 points. The three least viewed of the 11 CFP title games have occurred in the past five years.
Monday night's game peaked at 26.1 million viewers during the second quarter (8:30-8:45 p.m. ET) when the game was tied at 7-7. The audience started decreasing when the Buckeyes took a 21-7 lead at halftime and took an big drop when Ohio State built a 31-7 advantage midway though the third quarter. Notre Dame rallied to get to within one possession with five minutes left in the fourth quarter, but that helped only a little bit.
The first title game in 2015 -- the Buckeyes' 42-20 victory over Oregon -- remains the most watched college football game by viewers in the CFP era at 33.9 million.
"You always hope for, from a TV perspective, for a tight game to the finish. Right. That's one of the biggest factors driving the ultimate viewership, but it's also not something that you can control. So you're going to have ebbs and flows," Dawson said. "You hope that this new structure and format as it continues forward, that you're ultimately creating an even better chance that you're getting the two best teams in the country at the end matched up in the championship game, which again, you hope that that results in a great game on the field.
"Blowouts are not a college football thing. That occurs in every sport and every playoff from time to time. So you sort of have to accept that's going to be a reality once in a while."
One thing that might help ratings down the line is the title game will be simulcast on ABC and ESPN beginning with the 2027 season.
ESPN has the rights to the College Football Playoff through the 2031 season, after agreeing to a $7.8 billion rights last March. TNT will carry two first-round games again next season under a sublicense with ESPN before that expands to two first-round and two quarterfinal games beginning with the 2026 season.
While there has been debate about how the top four seeds and first-round byes should be decided, Dawson said that was up to the CFP committee.
Some also took exception to the title game being played on Jan. 20 and during the middle of the NFL playoffs, but Dawson noted there is always going to be competition with the NFL when games occur in December and January.
"I think for us, it's a process of continuing to assess and evaluate how each year goes and work with the CFP to figure out if there are slight adjustments that we think we could make to put ourselves in an even more advantageous position. But I don't really see a wholesale change that would eliminate that risk or situation," he said.