A lineup bereft of Power 5 teams left ESPN with unusually low college football numbers last weekend.
Western Michigan/Ohio earned 1.4 million viewers in last Friday’s MAC Championship Game on ESPN2, up 31% from Bowling Green/Northern Illinois last year (1.0M), up 96% from Bowling Green/Northern Illinois in 2014 (692K) and the most-watched MAC title game since Bowling Green/Northern Illinois in 2013 (1.9M). Ratings were not immediately available.
The Broncos’ win was the most-watched college football game of the weekend on ESPN or ESPN2, and the networks’ only window to post an increase over last year.
On Saturday, the Western Kentucky/Louisiana Tech Conference USA Championship had a 0.6 final rating and 926,000 viewers — not surprisingly down 78% in ratings and 77% in viewership from a Power 5 Texas/Baylor game last year (2.7, 3.9M) and down a third and 29%, respectively, from Houston/Cincinnati in 2014 (0.9, 1.3M).
The San Diego State/Wyoming Mountain West title game had a 0.4 and 713,000 later in the night, down a similarly unsurprising 75% in ratings and 72% in viewership from last year’s comparable Pac-12 Championship (1.6, 2.6M) and down 71% and 67%, respectively, from Kansas State/Baylor in 2014 (1.4, 2.2M). Compared to last year’s Air Force/San Diego State MWC title game, which aired on ESPN2, viewership increased 97% from 362,000.
(Wknd. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily 12/6)
