With all the big games reserved for the weekend, the opening Thursday of the college football season was a mediocre draw.
Thursday’s South Carolina/Vanderbilt college football game earned 1.9 million viewers on ESPN, down 26% from TCU/Minnesota in a similar timeslot last year (2.6M) and down 20% from Boise State/Mississippi in 2014 (2.4M). Ratings sank a third from last year (1.71 to 1.15).
The Gamecocks’ win was the least-watched opening night game on ESPN since UNLV/Wisconsin in 2011 (1.942M to 1.437M) and the second-least watched since at least 2007.
Head-to-head, Thursday’s game nearly doubled competing coverage of the Giants/Patriots NFL preseason game on NFL Network (1.1M). It tied the night’s third-highest rating among adults 18-49 (0.8), behind a rerun of The Big Bang Theory (1.1) and a new episode of Big Brother (1.6), both on CBS.
(Thu. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily, Programming Insider)
