College football ratings on FOX and CBS and Premier League numbers on NBC.
Nebraska-Oregon Leads CFB on FOX
FOX earned a 1.5 rating and 2.6 million viewers for last Saturday’s Nebraska-Oregon college football game, its top college football audience of the weekend. There was no comparable window last year. The primetime Stanford-USC game had a 1.2 and 2.1 million, up 20% in ratings and 22% in viewership from BYU-Utah last year (1.0, 1.7M), but down a third and 28% respectively from the teams’ meeting on ABC last season (1.8, 2.9M). Fox Sports 1 topped out at 410,000 for Minnesota-Oregon State — down 51% from Texas Tech-Arizona State last year (834K).
SEC on CBS Premiers on Down Note
The season premiere of the SEC on CBS — TCU-Arkansas — had a 1.5 rating and 2.3 million viewers last Saturday, down a tick in ratings and 7% in viewership from Kentucky-Florida last year (1.6, 2.5M) and down 12% and 9% respectively from Georgia-Vanderbilt in 2015 (1.7, 2.6M). Compared to last year’s season opener, which took place in week one, ratings fell 21% from a 1.9 and 25% from 3.1 million for UCLA-Texas A&M.
Man. Utd. Tops EPL Charts
Last Saturday’s Manchester United-Stoke City EPL match had a 0.6 rating and 876,000 viewers on NBC, up 93% in ratings and 75% in viewership from Liverpool-Leicester City on NBCSN last year (0.30, 502K) and flat and up 3% from Tottenham-Everton in 2015 (0.6, 850K). It was the weekend’s top match. On NBCSN, Liverpool-Manchester City led the way with 332,000 viewers Saturday morning — down 47% from the Manchester Derby last year (623K) and down 18% from Newcastle-Arsenal in 2015 (406K) — followed by Bournemouth-Arsenal (300K, -38%), Newcastle-Swansea (294K, -28%), Crystal Palace-Burnley (200K) and Tottenham-Everton on CNBC (120K, +7%). Monday figures were not immediately available.
