A near-upset of Alabama delivered ESPN’s highest college football ratings of the season.
Last Saturday’s Alabama-Mississippi State college football game had a 3.9 rating and 7.0 million viewers on ESPN, up 179% in ratings and 199% in viewership from LSU-Arkansas last year (1.4, 2.4M).**
ESPN Nielsen ratings now include streaming viewership on television; comparisons to last year’s TV-only numbers are marked by an asterisk (**).
The Tide’s narrow win, which peaked with 11.4 million viewers from 10:15-10:30 PM ET, was the most-watched college football game on cable this season. The previous high was 5.4 million for Ohio State-Indiana on opening night.
Going back further, it was the most-watched Saturday game on cable since Michigan State-Michigan in October 2015 (7.4M).
Regardless of network, it was the sixth-most watched game all season. For the weekend, it ranked second behind Georgia-Auburn on CBS (7.4M on TV alone), edging ABC’s much-hyped Notre Dame-Miami game head-to-head (6.9M with streaming included).
ESPN did not fare as well earlier in the day. Arkansas-LSU had a 1.2 (-40%) and 2.0 million (-39%) in the Noon ET window. Florida State-Clemson drew a 1.1 (-23%) and 1.9 million (-20%) at 3:30.
In other action, North Carolina-Pittsburgh had a 0.7 and 1.0 million (-35%)** last Thursday night.
As for the other ESPN networks, ESPN2 topped out at a 0.54 (+2%) and 983,000 (+21%)** for West Virginia-Kansas State. Figures for ESPNU were not immediately available.
The week eleven college football chart is available here.
[Wknd. numbers via ESPN, ShowBuzz Daily 11.14]
