ESPN scored its top Black Friday college football audience in half a decade.
Friday’s Baylor/TCU college football game had a 3.1 final rating and 5.1 million viewers on ESPN, up 82% in ratings and 68% in viewership from Virginia/Virginia Tech last year (1.7, 3.1M) and up 288% and 319%, respectively, from USF/UCF in 2013 (0.8, 1.2M).
The Horned Frogs’ win ranks as ESPN’s highest rated and most-watched game on Black Friday since 2010, when the network drew a 4.5 and 7.8 million for Arizona/Oregon and a 3.4 and 5.4 million for Boise State/Nevada. It was also the top game of the holiday weekend on cable.
Ranking second for the weekend was Penn State/Michigan State on Saturday, which had a 2.5 and 4.5 million — down 29% in ratings and 24% in viewership from Florida/Florida State last year (3.5, 6.0M) but up 92% and 103%, respectively, from Penn State/Wisconsin in 2013 (1.3, 2.2M).
This year’s FSU/Florida game had a 2.4 and 4.3 million later in the night, not surprisingly down 68% in ratings and viewership from Auburn/Alabama last year (7.4, 13.5M) and down 29% and 25%, respectively, from Texas A&M/Missouri in 2013 (3.4, 5.7M). Last year’s game was the most-watched regular season college football telecast ever on ESPN.
Clemson/South Carolina opened ESPN’s tripleheader with a 1.8 and 2.9 million, up 39% in ratings and 46% in viewership from the same matchup last year (1.3, 2.0M) and down 10% and 7%, respectively, from FSU/Florida in 2013 (2.0, 3.2M).
In other ESPN action, the Thanksgiving night game between USF and UCF had just 388,000 viewers — down 87% from LSU/Texas A&M last year (2.9M), down 76% from Mississippi/Mississippi State in 2013 (1.6M), and the network’s smallest audience of the season.
Elsewhere on the ESPN family of networks, ESPN2 topped out at 1.0 million viewers for Georgia/Georgia Tech Saturday afternoon — up 27% from Kentucky/Louisville last year (809K) and up 25% from Duke/North Carolina in 2013 (818K). Virginia Tech/Virginia topped the charts on ESPNU with 454,000, up 80% from Illinois/Northwestern last year (252K) and up 394% from Rutgers/Connecticut in 2013 (92K).
(Wknd. numbers via TV Media Insights [1], [2], ShowBuzz Daily, Sports Business Daily)
