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The 2026 College Football Playoff was full of thrills, coming down to the wire between a rising power in the Indiana Hoosiers and a resurging giant in the Miami Hurricanes. Let’s take a look back at some data and digital highlights around this year’s 12 CFP participants, powered by Fanbase.
Digital Media
Heisman Trophy and national championship hopefuls stole the show on social media, with Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza (Indiana) and finalist Julian Sayin (Ohio State) topping the social media metric charts for Heisman campaigns. Mendoza’s social media Heisman campaign tallied 13.2 million impressions while his Heisman hashtag, #HeisMendoza, collected 4.6 million impressions. Meanwhile, Sayin earned 14.6 million impressions on social posts related to his Heisman campaign while his campaign hashtag, #WeSayinHeisman, accrued 3.5 million impressions.
This year’s 12 playoff teams saw a combined 68% year-over-year (YoY) increase in social media impressions, led by Cinderella hopeful James Madison’s 158% increase from the 2024 season to the 2025 season. Tulane joined James Madison as Group of 5 champions to see major lifts on social media with a 112% YoY increase in impressions. James Madison also experienced a 53% spike in YoY engagements, while 55% of their impressions this season came after they were announced as a playoff participant during the 2026 CFP Selection Show.
Throughout the season and into the playoffs, several teams also saw jumps in web traffic via their SIDEARM Sports official athletics sites (OAS) as attention turned to their championship contending football teams. Throughout the regular season, Tulane and Texas Tech saw the largest YoY increases in page views per day at 10.7% and 6.6%, respectively. Meanwhile, it was James Madison who saw an incredible spike in page views per day in the leadup to their CFP match-up against Oregon with a 143% lift over their average page views per day during the regular season.
When it came to championship gameday (Jan. 19), the triumphant Indiana Hoosiers experienced significant boosts across all digital platforms with record highs of 21,286 total users and 70,400 total sessions on the IU Hoosiers mobile app, 211,554 total users (a 183% increase over their average gameday traffic) and 72.2% engagement rate (8 points higher than their average gameday) on IUHoosiers.com, and 2,341 views (a 184% increase over their average gameday) of their digital gameday program.
Viewership & Attendance
After winning the National Championship a season ago, Ohio State competed in the two regular season games that topped the viewership charts in the 2025 regular season, registering 15,971,000 viewers for the season opener against Texas and 17,020,000 viewers for the regular season finale at Michigan. Additionally, each of the top nine and 29 of the top 32 most viewed games of the 2025 regular season featured eventual 2026 CFP participants.
The 2026 CFP Quarterfinals experienced a 9.5% increase in viewership compared to the first-ever 12-team playoff in 2025, while The Rose Bowl Game featuring eventual national champion Indiana and No. 9 seed Alabama recorded the highest viewership of any 1st Round or Quarterfinal game through the first two years of the 12-team playoff at over 22 million viewers. After opening strong, the 2026 CFP also closed strong with 30.1 million viewers for the 2026 National Championship Game between Indiana and Miami, the 2rd most watched playoff game in the 12 years of the CFP era.
The Miami faithful showed up and showed out during the 2025 college football season, willing the Hurricanes all the way to a national championship game appearance inside their home venue, Hard Rock Stadium. The Canes enjoyed a 6.5% increase in YoY average home attendance this season, leading all participants in the 2026 College Football Playoff.
Fan Data
Indiana fans are no strangers to long-distance trips to see the Hoosiers play, a fact that became more and more evident throughout each round of their run to the first National Championship in school history. More than 43% of the fan records for 2025 football ticket buyers live at least 120 miles outside of Bloomington and nearly 36% reside outside the state of Indiana, the third highest percentage in both categories among Fanbase schools in the CFP. That readiness to follow the Hoosiers all over the country paid big dividends as IU fans showed up in impressive numbers at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta and Hard Rock Stadium in Miami for the CFP Semifinal and Final.
Meanwhile, semifinal participants Ole Miss and Oregon hold the marks for highest and lowest percentages of their 2025 football ticket buyers residing within 120 miles of campus. More than 66% of Rebel fans who bought football tickets in 2025 live more than 120 miles of Oxford, while a whopping 74% of Oregon’s 2025 ticket buyers traveled 120 miles or less from home to see the Ducks play in Eugene this season.
Digital Advertising
Five CFP participants – Alabama, Indiana, James Madison, Ole Miss and Tulane – worked with Learfield and ticketing technology provider Paciolan to launch digital football ticketing campaigns during the 2025 season, utilizing Fanbase data to better target their fans and increase their return on ad spend (ROAS). On average, campaigns targeting Fanbase audiences resulted in a 45.3% increase in ROAS over campaigns not targeting Fanbase audiences, with Ole Miss seeing the largest lift of the five schools in campaigns targeting Fanbase audiences.
As you can see, data & digital insights from Fanbase, Learfield’s industry-leading proprietary fan data platform, continue to trend upwards for school partners across the enterprise. Stay tuned to Learfield’s web and social channels for more insights and trends throughout the spring sports season!