Sunday night was football night for ABC.
Notre Dame/Texas college football scored a 7.0 overnight rating on ABC Sunday night, the highest for an opening weekend game since Miami/Florida State on the same network in 2005 (7.2). The 7.0 is the second-highest for an opening weekend game on the ESPN family of networks since at least 2004.
The 7.0 easily surpassed the weekend’s previous high of 4.9 for USC/Alabama and LSU/Wisconsin the previous day. Outside of the Olympics, it ranks as the highest overnight for any sporting event since the NBA Finals in June — even surpassing the MLB All-Star Game (6.4).
Notre Dame and Texas also met on the opening weekend of last season. That game, a 38-3 Notre Dame blowout that aired on a packed Saturday night, had a 2.6 overnight on NBC.
Austin, TX, led all markets with a 25.4 rating. By comparison, the market averaged an 18.0 for NBC’s primetime coverage of the Summer Olympics, topped by a 23.7 for the first Thursday of competition. Birmingham (17.3), San Antonio (15.1), Dallas-Ft. Worth (13.1) and Oklahoma City (12.8) rounded out the top five.
(Sun. numbers from ESPN Media Zone)
