A top ten team getting upset by its heated rival helped ABC win another college football weekend.
Michigan State-Michigan had a 3.7 rating and 6.5 million viewers on ABC Saturday night, up 16% in ratings and 17% in viewership from Florida State-Miami last year (3.2, 5.5M) and up 61% and 86% respectively from Miami-FSU in 2015 (2.3, 3.5M).
The Spartans’ upset win, which peaked with 8.9 million viewers from 11-11:15 PM ET, was the most-watched college football game of the weekend on any network. ABC’s Saturday night series has topped the charts in five of six weeks this season.
Including streaming viewership, Saturday’s game had 6.6 million viewers (+18%). For the season, it ranks as the fourth-most watched game on any network, with each of the top four airing on ABC.
Compared to previous meetings between the rivals, Saturday’s game topped last year’s Noon ET matchup (2.9, 4.6M), but trailed the infamous 2015 botched snap game (4.5, 7.4M), both of which aired on ESPN.
Detroit led all markets with a whopping 28.4 rating, the market’s second-best for the MSU-Michigan rivalry behind 2013 (29.2).
Earlier on ABC, Penn State-Northwestern had a 1.9 (-21%) and 2.8 million (-24%) and a 1.6 (-20%) and 2.5 million (-23%) for Notre Dame-North Carolina.
[Wknd. numbers from ESPN, ShowBuzz Daily 10.10]
