Fans watch bowls, want tourney

More than 108 million people tuned in to watch at least part of the college bowl games, according to ratings data from Nielsen. But the company also surveyed college football fans by telephone and found that 51% of them wish there was a playoff tournament to crown the champion.

With no tournament, there is dispute every year about which are the top two college football teams and whether they get selected to play each other in a bowl game. The Bowl Championship Series was supposed to deal with that, but not everyone agrees that LSU and Ohio State were the two top teams. LSU beat Ohio State in that recent BCS Championship game watched by 23 million viewers, the most of any bowl game this season. But Nielsen’s poll found that only 41.8% of respondents thought those were the two top teams.

A similar number, 41%, indicated that there are too many college football bowl games (currently 32) in Division 1-A, while 34% disagreed. Just over half (51%) of all respondents agreed that “college football needs a tournament system like that which is used in college basketball.” Only 20% disagreed with the idea of a playoff and 9% were undecided. The most passionate college football fans (indicated by their responses) held stronger opinions: 62% want a playoff.

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