The debut of Notre Dame football on NBCSN set a network record.
Saturday’s Boston College/Notre Dame college football game had a 1.15 final rating and 2.0 million viewers on NBCSN, down 43% in ratings and 36% in viewership from the team’s seventh home game last year, against Louisville (2.0, 3.1M) and down 23% and 13%, respectively, from the seventh game in 2013, against BYU (1.5, 2.3M). Those aired on the NBC broadcast network.
Notre Dame’s closer-than-expected win ranks as the highest rated and most-watched college football telecast ever on NBCSN (previously VERSUS and OLN), topping the previous highs of 1.1 and 1.9 million for Oregon/Cal in November 2010. Keep in mind NBCSN has aired few major conference college football games, having briefly owned rights to select games in the Big 12 (2007-09) and Pac-12 (2007-11).
The game also drew more viewers than two of Notre Dame’s six games on NBC this season, against Wake Forest the week before (1.9M) and against Massachusetts in week four (1.99M to 1.96M).
With that said, ratings and viewership were the lowest for a primetime Notre Dame telecast in over four years — since an October 2011 matchup with Purdue had a 0.9 and 1.4 million on ESPN. The numbers also ranked dead last out of the team’s thirteen primetime home games in the past seven seasons (dates back to 2009).
