ABC, and the Big Ten, once again topped the college football ratings charts.
Michigan-Penn State delivered a 4.2 overnight rating on ABC’s Saturday Night Football over the weekend, even with Ohio State-Penn State last year, up 27% from Ohio State-Rutgers in 2015 (3.3), and the highest college football overnight of week eight.
ABC has now aired the weekend’s top college football game in seven of eight weeks this season, and the Big Ten has topped the charts in four of the past five.
Head-to-head, the Nittany Lions’ win doubled the competing USC-Notre Dame on NBC (2.1). Not surprisingly, it was no match for the Yankees-Astros MLB ALCS Game 7 on FS1 (7.1).
Ranking second for the weekend, Oklahoma State-Texas on ABC and Tennessee-Alabama on CBS both scored a 2.9 overnight. The former increased 59% from N.C. State-Louisville last year (1.9) and tied the highest Noon ET overnight all season. The latter declined 46% from Texas A&M-Alabama last year (5.4).
Rounding out the weekend’s top five, Indiana-Michigan State had a 2.3 on ABC (+35%). USC-Notre Dame on NBC and Oklahoma-Kansas State on FOX tied at a 2.1, up a tick and 75% respectively from last year’s comparable games — Stanford-Notre Dame (2.0) and Utah-UCLA (1.2).
On cable, Louisville-Florida State was the weekend’s top draw with a 2.0 overnight on ESPN.
[Wknd. numbers from ESPN, Sports Business Daily 10.23]
