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ESPN Won The Lottery With The First-Ever College Football Playoff

Cork GainesJan 15, 2015, 02:07 IST

Ohio State may have lifted the college football playoff championship trophy, but the real winner was ESPN with record ratings.

According to SportsMediaWatch.com, 34.1 million people watched the championship game on Monday night, the most-watched cable television program of all time. The audience was a 30% increase over last year's BCS championship game and up 29% from the 2013 title game.

A lot of people raised an eyebrow when ESPN agreed to pay $7.3 billion for the rights to broadcast the first 12 years of the playoff. These ratings justify that price tag and if the ratings continue to go up, it will be an absolute bargain by years 11 and 12.

Here are the ten most-watched cable television programs of all time. They all aired on ESPN.