As discussed with Ryan Glasspiegel on House of Glass, to critics’ chagrin, the Pat McAfee era College GameDay is a ratings monster. Yes modern Nielsen numbers are juiced, but even with that caveat, the stats are impressive. GameDay’s hosting of last Saturday’s hyped Lane Kiffin Bowl between LSU and Ole Miss qualifies as its best Week 3 ever.
I’m not crediting the surge completely to McAfee, or to co-host Nick Saban. A lot of this is connected to the main pushback I received when arguing that college football has issues in need of remedy: Many fans are watching these big CFB games, current structural chaos be damned. It was the best of college football times, it was the worst of college football times.
Meanwhile, if you read about GameDay online, you’d likely come away believing that the show is an audience-repelling disaster. They host Ted Cruz. They only feature big time schools. They suck up to the SEC. Clearly, this program risks losing its way. The critics are free to hate GameDay in its current iteration but they should perhaps ask themselves: Is this show even made for me?
On the Ted Cruz front, John Ourand reported that GameDay lost no audience during the senator’s controversial appearance.