Disney topped the charts in week four of the college football season, while some of the sport’s marquee draws hit lows.
Penn State-Iowa earned a 3.1 overnight rating on ABC’s Saturday Night Football over the weekend, up 11% from Stanford-UCLA last year (2.8), up 41% from UCLA-Arizona in 2015 (2.2), and the top college football overnight of the weekend.
The Nittany Lions’ win topped competing coverage of Notre Dame-Michigan State on FOX, which had a 2.4 — up 85% from a delayed Oklahoma State-Baylor game last year (1.3), but the lowest overnight for the series since an afternoon game on NBC in 2007 (2.3). Compared to last year’s meeting between the rivals, which aired on NBC in primetime, overnights fell 25% from a 3.2.
Earlier in the day, ABC earned a 2.9 for regional action featuring N.C. State-Florida State (+45%) and a 2.5 for USC-Cal (+4%), the second and third-highest CFB overnights of the weekend.
In the mid-afternoon window, FOX ranked close behind ABC with a 2.4 for Michigan-Purdue, while CBS ranked a surprising third with a 1.8 for Alabama’s annihilation of Vanderbilt. The 1.8 is the lowest for an Alabama game on CBS in at least a decade, and likely further back.
Also in that window, TCU-Oklahoma State drew a 1.7 overnight on ESPN, the highest college football overnight of the weekend on cable. ESPN and ESPN2 took the top five spots, with Texas A&M-Arkansas and Georgia-Mississippi State tied for second with a 1.6.
[Wknd. numbers from ESPN, Sports Business Daily 9.25]
