2016–17 College Football Playoff

The 2016–17 College Football Playoff was a single-elimination postseason tournament that determined the national champion of the 2016 NCAA Division I FBS football season. It was the third edition of the College Football Playoff (CFP) and involved the top four teams in the country as ranked by the College Football Playoff poll playing in two semifinals, with the winners of each advancing to the national championship game. Three of the four teams were conference champions: No. 1 Alabama from the Southeastern Conference, No. 2 Clemson from the Atlantic Coast Conference, and No. 4 Washington from the Pac-12 Conference. No. 3 Ohio State, from the Big Ten Conference, finished second in their division on a head-to-head tiebreaker with Penn State, who went on to win the conference championship.

The playoff bracket's semifinal games were held at the Peach Bowl and Fiesta Bowl on New Year's Eve, part of the season's slate of bowl games. In the Peach Bowl semifinal, Alabama defeated Washington, 24–7. The Fiesta Bowl semifinal saw Clemson shutout Ohio State, 31–0. As a result of their victories, Clemson and Alabama faced each other in the national championship game, a rematch of the previous season's championship game, held on January 9 in Tampa, Florida. Clemson won the rematch by a four-point margin to claim their first championship of the CFP era and their second national championship in school history, the first since 1981.

The three playoff games earned an average Nielsen rating of 12.7, with the championship scoring 15.4, a four percent upgrade from the previous edition. The playoff saw an increase in average audience and unique viewership with an average of 22.23 million viewers and a peak of 26.03 million. The championship became the eighth-most-watched cable broadcast in history and the most-viewed since the last national championship game.