Perceptions of College Sports 2025 

What’s Changing With Viewers; What’s Changing for Brands?

Maybe it was the expanded college football playoff; maybe it was the Caitlin Clark effect, but college sports attracted more viewers in 2024. The product attracted more casual fans, and the brand power for sponsors remained strong. Nearly 47% of college sports viewers prioritize, or give preference to, brands they recall as college sports sponsors when they shopped for goods and services in 2024, up from 43% in 2023. But it's possible for even a media juggernaut like college sports to create too much of a good thing...

Unlike what we've seen in past versions of this study, Big Chalk detected a flip in net sentiment (from positive to negative) concerning fans' perceptions of conference realignment, and as the college football playoffs stretched further into January -- and thus overlapped with the NFL playoffs -- we've detected lesser correct brand attribution for sponsor brands. Will this devalue college sports as a media product? Not likely; Big Chalk is still predicting expanded viewership in 2025, and college sports fans are among the most engaged of any consumer type, but the devil is in the details...

Download the white paper to get all the stats and commentary in Part I or our two-part series on the state of college sports in 2025.