The first Saturday of the college football season was an up-and-down draw on ESPN.
Saturday’s Stanford/Northwestern college football game drew 3.4 million viewers on ESPN, up 10% from UCLA/Virginia last year (2.9M) but down 24% from Rice/Texas A&M in a later window two years ago (4.2M). The Wildcats’ upset was the day’s top college football telecast on cable, and the only game of ESPN’s tripleheader to have an increase.
Keep in mind the game faced light competition in its timeslot. None of the four broadcast networks or Fox Sports 1 broadcast a game in the window.
Penn State/Temple drew 1.9 million viewers later in the day, down 52% from Clemson/Georgia last year (4.0M) and 63% from Alabama/Virginia Tech in 2013 (5.2M). The Arizona State/Texas A&M nightcap had 2.5 million, down 47% from Wisconsin/LSU last year (4.7M) and down 22% from LSU/TCU in 2013 (3.2M). The comparable games both last year and in 2013 aired in later timeslots.
Shifting to Friday, Washington/Boise State drew 2.1 million — up 116% from UNLV/Arizona last year (955K). Baylor/SMU scored 2.0 million earlier in the night, up 85% from BYU/Connecticut last year (1.1M) but down 6% from Texas Tech/SMU in 2013 (2.1M).
