Brand Relevance: Notre Dame Dominates the Media Cycle for Four Straight Days Following CFP Decision
- Ruben Kelly Ysasi
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
Photo by Arav Patel
In a time where media personalities, networks, coaches, and fans routinely claim Notre Dame is “irrelevant,” the Irish spent four straight days proving the opposite. From the moment the College Football Playoff committee announced at roughly 12:30 PM EST on Sunday, December 7th, that Notre Dame would not be included in the 12-team playoff field, the national conversation shifted—and it didn't shift away. It shifted entirely toward Notre Dame.
For the next 96 hours, every major sports network, radio show, digital outlet, podcast, message board, and social media platform centered its attention on one program. Even as Indiana stunned No. 1 Ohio State on Saturday night—earning the Hoosiers the first No. 1 ranking in school history—the spotlight remained fixed on South Bend. While other schools spent the week celebrating milestones or preparing for bowl matchups, Notre Dame was commanding the storylines.
The Statement Heard Across College Football
The moment Notre Dame released its post-announcement statement declining a bowl invitation, the conversation intensified. It wasn’t merely a headline; it became the headline.
Prominent voices rushed to weigh in. ESPN’s Booger McFarland labeled it a “weak move.” FOX’s Joel Klatt called it “petty.” And then came a nearly two-minute tirade from Stephen A. Smith on First Take, turning Notre Dame’s decision into national theater. Ranting about independence, media rights revenue, and accountability, Smith delivered a monologue that instantly circulated across the internet.
I didn’t even include the entire quote, but it hardly matters—the clip speaks for itself. What matters is that the list of reactions only continued to grow. Every major outlet you can name—whether they praised Notre Dame, condemned them, or simply wanted the engagement traffic—was talking about the Irish. Some argued the decision was a principled protest. Others said it revealed entitlement. But regardless of the angle, the effect was the same: Notre Dame owned the news cycle.
Why This Moment Matters
Notre Dame dominating attention is not unusual. It is one of the few programs in college sports that can generate headlines in-season, off-season, good season, or bad season. But what made this week different was the sheer duration and intensity of the discourse.
This was not a single news blast. It was not a 24-hour reaction. It was a sustained national fixation—one that overshadowed playoff-bound teams, coaching carousel moves, and historic on-field results.
And that exposure matters. For a brand often criticized for leaning too heavily on tradition and history, moments like these reveal something undeniable: Notre Dame’s relevance is not nostalgia-based—it is real-time, modern-media dominance.
The Irish didn’t even play a game, yet they drove engagement metrics, dictated show rundowns, and fueled hours of TV programming across networks that typically compete for attention rather than converge on a single story.
The Irish Tribune Numbers Tell the Story
Nothing illustrates Notre Dame’s current media power more clearly than the analytics. Between December 7th and December 9th alone, The Irish Tribune surpassed 12 million views across Facebook, Instagram, and X, marking one of the highest engagement surges in our company's history.
The last time we saw anything remotely close? Immediately after the Orange Bowl and leading into last year’s National Championship game—a window where interest naturally peaks. That interval included a roughly ten-day gap filled with nonstop playoff discourse.
This time, it took three days.
Notre Dame did not play. Notre Dame did not win. Notre Dame did not even participate in a bowl game. And yet, Notre Dame still pulled national-championship-week numbers.
So, Irrelevant? Far From It.
The “Notre Dame is irrelevant” narrative collapses under the weight of weeks like this. Programs without relevance do not dominate national media for four consecutive days. They don’t spark reactions from the most influential personalities in sports media. They don’t overshadow a top-ranked Big Ten matchup or a No. 1 upset. They don’t cause networks to reorder entire show scripts. And they certainly don't drive eight-digit social engagement metrics across independent media outlets.
Relevance isn’t measured by playoff bids or conference affiliations.
Relevance is measured by attention.
And for four days—across platforms, across networks, across the entire nation—the attention belonged to Notre Dame.
The “47 Years Since a National Championship” Argument Falls Apart
Any time Notre Dame enters a major national conversation, critics reliably reach for the same talking point: “They haven’t won a national championship in 47 years.” It’s the seemingly perfect go-to line, the reflexive jab, the stat meant to end every debate about Notre Dame’s standing in the sport.
But in the context of relevance, that argument collapses instantly.
If championships were the sole determinant of relevance, then entire conferences, dozens of major brands, and half the current playoff field each year would be labeled irrelevant, too. Miami hasn’t won since 2001. Tennessee since 1998. Texas since 2005. Michigan, before 2023, went 25 years without one. The majority of programs hailed today as “blue bloods” have gone through decades-long droughts.
Yet none of them face the same scrutiny Notre Dame does.
Why? Because Notre Dame’s value to college football has never rested solely on the last trophy lifted. It rests on national interest, measurable attention, unmatched brand power, and the ability to dominate a conversation, even when the team is not on the field. Relevance is about impact, not hardware.
And the impact is obvious:
Notre Dame missing the Playoff drove more conversation than several teams making the Playoff
Notre Dame declining a bowl bid produced more national outrage, debate, and ratings than most bowl selections themselves
Notre Dame’s name appearing on a headline, regardless of the context, generates more clicks, comments, and viewership than almost any other program in America
If a 47-year drought truly made a program irrelevant, then the media would simply ignore Notre Dame. There would be no tirades, no think pieces, no emergency segments on ESPN, no viral debates, and no multi-day news cycle centered around South Bend.
Instead, the opposite happens. Every. Single. Time.
What the “47 years” talking point really proves is not irrelevance, but the reverse: Notre Dame’s standard remains so historically high, its brand so culturally embedded, that people still expect championships from them nearly half a century later. No other program in America gets held to a bar that old and that high.
That’s not irrelevance. That’s influence.
The 2024 Push for the First-Ever On-Campus CFP Game in South Bend
Another major blow to the “irrelevance” narrative came just one season prior, when a large behind-the-scenes push began behind the idea of Notre Dame hosting the first-ever on-campus College Football Playoff game in 2024. The idea of hosting the matchup in what some consider the "mecca" of College Football was an opportunity ESPN couldn't pass up.
Before the bracket was even finalized, South Bend was trending. Major outlets published pieces envisioning a snowy playoff atmosphere at Notre Dame Stadium, and social media erupted with ticket projections, travel plans, and excitement over an in-state showdown that felt made for prime-time television.
No other potential opening-round game generated anywhere near the same buzz.
The fact that a projection—not an official announcement—was enough to dominate conversation shows just how powerful the Notre Dame brand remains. Programs deemed “irrelevant” do not spark nationwide anticipation for a hypothetical matchup, let alone one that would have made South Bend the center of the college football world.
Even the possibility alone proved the point: Notre Dame still moves the needle in ways only a handful of programs can.
Notre Dame Has Proven It Leads the Sport—Most Recently in 2020
If there is any doubt about Notre Dame’s influence on the direction of the sport, all anyone needs to do is look back to 2020. At a time when conferences were canceling, delaying, or hesitating, Notre Dame played a central role in keeping college football alive during one of the most uncertain seasons in the sport’s history. By temporarily joining the ACC, agreeing to conference testing protocols, revenue sharing, and a full league schedule, the Irish helped stabilize a chaotic national landscape.
It wasn’t a small gesture; it was a pivotal one. Notre Dame’s participation helped validate the ACC’s season, allowed for high-profile matchups that carried the sport’s TV inventory, and signaled to fans and networks that college football could move forward safely and competitively. Multiple conference administrators later acknowledged that Notre Dame’s willingness to adapt was a major factor in giving the 2020 season structure instead of collapse.
And that is the larger point: When meaningful change happens, Notre Dame is usually at the front. Whether it is playoff expansion, scheduling reform, media negotiations, or conference alignment, the Irish remain one of the few programs with the national weight to influence the direction of the sport. If the current model shifts again—as many believe it will—Notre Dame will be leading the charge more than anyone else.
Irrelevant programs do not steady a sport during a crisis. They do not anchor conferences. They do not shape national decisions.
Notre Dame does.
Some may call the decision to opt out of a bowl game cowardice or petty, or even that the actions of their program are "egregious," as stated by Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark. But can change happen by sitting down and doing nothing? History says different. If anyone can and will change this sport for the better, it's Notre Dame.
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