It was not as big a matchup as Alabama-Florida State, but Oklahoma-Ohio State still delivered strong numbers for ABC.
Oklahoma-Ohio State drew a 4.6 rating and 8.1 million viewers on ABC’s Saturday Night Football last weekend, up 39% in ratings and 40% in viewership from Virginia Tech-Tennessee last year (3.3, 5.8M). Compared to Oregon-Michigan State in 2015, ratings fell 4% from 4.8 but viewership increased 2% from 7.9 million.
Compared to the teams’ meeting on FOX last season, a week three matchup that was delayed 90 minutes due to rain, the Sooners’ win increased 35% and 39% respectively from a 3.4 and 5.8 million.
Including streaming viewership on WatchESPN, the game had 8.3 million viewers. With or without streaming, it ranks second for the young season behind Alabama-FSU on ABC the previous Saturday night (12.4M on TV, 12.6M overall).
ESPN and ABC now own nine of the ten largest college football audiences through the first two weeks.
Earlier in the day, Pittsburgh-Penn State had a 2.4 (-4%) and 3.70 million (-8%) and Cincinnati-Michigan a 2.4 (+26%) and 3.61 million (+26%). Adding in streaming, the games had 3.74 and 3.69 million viewers respectively.
[Wknd. numbers from ESPN, ShowBuzz Daily 9.13]
