Saturday’s SEC Championship between the Alabama Crimson Tide and Georgia Bulldogs was extremely special for a lot of reasons, with playoff implications and another chapter being written in the story between Nick Saban and Kirby Smart.

It was also the final airing of the “SEC on CBS,” with the television deal expiring this season and the SEC moving to ESPN.

The ratings reflected the magnitude of the game, with the broadcast pulling in more viewers than any conference championship on any network in the last five years, averaging 17.519 million viewers and peaking at 22.350 million viewers.

https://twitter.com/CBSSportsGang/status/1732062473765670981?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1732062473765670981%7Ctwgr%5E6d5b4b45edcef918f11a5a11023237c73db8e719%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tuscaloosanews.com%2Fstory%2Fsports%2Fcollege%2Fsec%2F2023%2F12%2F05%2Falabama-sec-championship-game-win-georgia-rating-cbs%2F71812328007%2F

According to CBS, these figures represented a 61% increase in viewership over last year’s game between Georgia and LSU and was the most-watched SEC title game since 2009.

For comparison purposes, the Big-10 Championship between Michigan and Iowa pulled in 10.02 million viewers on average, the Pac-12 Championship between Washington and Oregon had 9.25 million, the Big-12 Championship between Texas and Oklahoma State had 7.89 million, and the ACC Championship between Florida State and Louisville had 7.03 million.

Here was the final sign-off from Brad Nessler and Gary Danielson as the “SEC on CBS” era came to an end:

Brad Nessler and Gary Danielson sign off for the final time as the SEC on CBS comes to an end pic.twitter.com/4uAt9DEqCA

— Ben Brown 🌻 (@BenBrownPL) December 3, 2023