I thought this chart was interesting for how it ranks by playoff viewership vs semis-to-semis or whatever.
https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/college-football-playoff-ratings-bcs-history/
The overall bad things seem to be: we haven’t hit a 30M game in almost a decade, and struggling to break 25 in the last three years.
Some of the matchup numbers were the most interesting to me, though. Oregon in the highest viewed game of the last decade? Some novelty factor? UGA Alabama 2021 with a lot fewer viewers than 2017? TCU/Michigan with more viewers in the semi than Georgia/TCU with higher stakes? UGA fatigue? Probably a lot of matchup- and year- specific factors to each, but overall to me it doesn’t feel to me like it’s only the biggest names that are viable and attractive to viewers in those games.
“At least 4 million people who watched TCU against Michigan didn’t care to see what they did against UGA” isn’t the typical way that championship game viewer level is reported, but it’s weird - as is the 5M drop off from UGA/OSU. I’m perfectly ok with saying UGA is the problem