The undefeated Hawkeyes boosted ABC to its top Black Friday college football audience in a decade.
Last Friday’s Iowa/Nebraska college football game drew a 3.9 final rating and 6.2 million viewers on ABC, up 105% in ratings and 111% in viewership from Stanford/UCLA last year (1.9, 2.9M), up 179% and 192%, respectively, from Miami/Pittsburgh in 2013 (1.4, 2.1M), and the network’s highest rated and most-watched game on the day after Thanksgiving since Texas A&M/Texas in 2005 (4.9, 7.5M).
The Hawkeyes’ win was the top Black Friday game regardless of network since Arkansas/LSU on CBS in 2011 (6.3, 10.4M). For the holiday weekend, it ranked fourth among all games — trailing only Ohio State/Michigan on ABC (6.4, 10.8M), Alabama/Auburn on CBS (5.3, 9.3M) and Notre Dame/Stanford on FOX (4.3, 7.3M).
Ratings and viewership were not available for the early game between Navy and Houston.
Shifting to Saturday, Oklahoma/Oklahoma State had a 2.8 and 4.8 million on Saturday Night Football — up 47% in ratings and 45% in viewership from Oregon/Oregon State last year (1.9, 3.3M) and up a third and 39%, respectively, from UCLA/USC in 2013 (2.1, 3.5M). Despite hosting College Gameday and ESPN/ABC’s lead college football broadcast team, the annual Bedlam game ranked sixth for the weekend and second in its timeslot.
Regional action featuring USC/UCLA in 65% of markets had 4.2 million earlier in the day, up 6% from regional action last year (4.0M) and up 20% from Georgia/Georgia Tech in 2013 (3.5M). Ratings were not immediately available. Reverse mirror coverage on ESPN2 — North Carolina/N.C. State in markets receiving USC/UCLA on ABC — had 380,000, bringing the combined viewership total to 4.6 million.
(Wknd. numbers from ESPN, with additional info from TV Media Insights [1], [2])
