With lower-profile teams on the schedule, the final games of college football’s opening weekend were no match for last year.
Monday’s Tennessee-Georgia Tech college football game delivered 5.1 million viewers on ESPN, down 39% from Florida State-Mississippi last year (8.4M) and down 51% from Ohio State-Virginia Tech in 2015 (10.6M). Ratings were not immediately available.
The Volunteers’ overtime win was the least-watched Labor Day game since Miami-Louisville in 2014 (3.6M), but the third-most watched since 2010. Including streaming, it had 5.3 million.
On Sunday night, Virginia Tech-West Virginia delivered a 2.7 and 4.6 million on ABC — down 58% in ratings and viewership from Notre Dame-Texas last year (6.4, 10.9M) and the network’s least-watched primetime game on the opening weekend of the season since LSU-North Carolina in 2010 (4.3M). Including streaming, it had 4.7 million.
Keep in mind that unlike last year, the Sunday night window faced competition from another game, UCLA-Texas A&M on FOX (1.9, 3.2M). The combined TV audience of the two games — roughly 7.8 million — still marked a 28% drop from Notre Dame-Texas last year.
For the weekend, Monday’s game ranked fourth and Sunday’s fifth among all networks. ESPN and ABC generated the five largest audiences.
