College football on FOX continues to be a relative afterthought.
Last Saturday’s Texas/Oklahoma State game drew a 1.1 final rating and 1.9 million viewers on FOX, down 39% in ratings and 38% in viewership from Texas Tech/Baylor last year (1.8, 3.1M) and down 48% and 41%, respectively, from Oklahoma/West Virginia in 2012 (2.1, 3.2M).
The Longhorns’ blowout win earned the season’s third-lowest rating and viewership for a primetime game on FOX, ahead of only Fresno State/USC in August (0.9, 1.3M) and Baylor/Iowa State in September (0.8, 1.3M).
FOX was closer to ESPN2 Saturday night than ABC or ESPN. Texas/Oklahoma State trailed both FSU/Miami on ABC (5.3, 8.7M) and Auburn/Georgia on ESPN (2.6, 4.6M) by a considerable margin, but edged LSU/Arkansas on ESPN2 (1.0, 1.8M).
Earlier in the day, Washington/Arizona drew a 0.7 and 1.0 million on FOX — down 50% in ratings and 53% in viewership from Oklahoma State/Texas last year (1.4, 2.2M). The concurrent TCU/Kansas game on Fox Sports 1 drew a 0.4 and 649,000, flat in ratings and down 13% in viewership from Utah/Oregon in a later timeslot last year (0.4, 747K).
Rounding out the action on Fox Sports, the late night North Texas/UTEP game had a dire 0.0 and 75,000 viewers on FS1.
(Sat. numbers from Sports Business Daily, Awful Announcing)
