It was hardly as big a draw as their meeting last year, but Clemson and Louisville gave ABC a big increase on Saturday night.
Clemson-Louisville earned a 3.0 rating and 5.1 million viewers on ABC’s Saturday Night Football last weekend, up 67% in ratings and 76% in viewership from USC-Stanford last year (1.8, 2.9M) and up 36% and 45% respectively from Stanford-USC in 2015 (2.2, 3.5M). The game had 5.2 million with streaming included.
Compared to the teams’ meeting last season, which aired on ABC’s Saturday night series in week five, ratings dropped 45% from 5.0 and viewership 46% from 9.3 million. The teams were both ranked in the top five last year, but this year’s rematch was no slouch on paper — the defending national champions against the defending Heisman Trophy winner.
Head-to-head, the Tigers’ easy win outpaced the USC-Texas double-overtime game on FOX (2.9, 4.9M). That was a reversal of the overnights, in which USC-Texas beat Clemson-Louisville 3.5 to 3.3.
Boosted by a pair of marquee early matchups, Alabama-Florida State in week one and Oklahoma-Ohio State in week two, ABC’s Saturday Night Football is now averaging 8.3 million viewers across TV and digital — up 51% from last year.
Earlier in the day, UCLA-Memphis had a 2.2 and 3.2 million, down 45% in ratings and 48% in viewership from Louisville 63, Florida State 20 last year (4.0, 6.2M), but up 29% and 28% respectively from Air Force-Michigan State in 2015 (1.7, 2.5M).
Wisconsin-BYU brought up the rear with a mere 1.5 (-42%) and 2.3 million (-46%).
[Wknd. numbers from ESPN PR, ShowBuzz Daily 9.13]
