It was not the top ten clash ABC envisioned, but Louisville’s rout of Florida State still did well in the overnights.
Saturday’s FSU/Louisville college football game earned a 4.5 overnight rating on ABC Saturday afternoon, up 150% from Air Force/Michigan State last year (1.8), up 137% from regional action in 2014 (1.9), and the network’s best for a Noon ET game this early in the season since Notre Dame/Michigan in 2005 (5.0).
The Cardinals’ blowout win, in which they led by as many as 53 points over the #2 team in the country, trailed only Alabama/Mississippi later in the day as the weekend’s highest rated college football game in the metered markets (5.4).
Louisville was the top market with a 28.6 rating, the highest since at least 2004 for a Cardinals game on ESPN/ABC. The market’s previous high was a 26.0 for Louisville/Kentucky in 2013.
Later in the afternoon, Oregon/Nebraska scored a 2.6 overnight — down 28% from regional action featuring Northern Illinois/Ohio State last year (3.6) and up 37% from Arkansas/Texas Tech in 2014 (1.9). Stanford/USC rounded out the day with a 2.1 on Saturday Night Football, down 22% from the same matchup last year (2.7) and down a tick from Tennessee/Oklahoma in 2014 (2.2).
(Wknd. numbers from ESPN 9/18)
