It was a blowout, but ESPN’s annual Labor Day game still delivered solid numbers.
Monday’s Virginia Tech-Florida State college football game scored a 3.4 rating and 5.58 million viewers on ESPN, up 17% in ratings and 9% in viewership from last year (Tennessee-Georgia Tech: 2.9, 5.13M) but down 29% and 33% respectively from 2016 (Mississippi-FSU: 4.8, 8.35M). Prior year figures do not include streaming.
The Hokies’ easy win was the weekend’s most-watched game on cable and ranked third across all networks. Michigan-Notre Dame on NBC (7.09M) and Miami-LSU on ABC (6.55M) took the top two spots.
Among Labor Day games, this year’s matchup ranks as the third-most watched since 2010 — behind Mississippi-FSU in 2016 and Ohio State-Virginia Tech in 2016 (10.6M). Versus the last ACC conference game on Labor Day, Miami-Louisville in 2014, viewership increased 55% from 3.61 million.
In other ESPN action, Mississippi-Texas Tech led Saturday’s games with a 1.2 rating and 1.93 million viewers — up 20% in ratings and 18% in viewership from last year (Kent State-Clemson: 1.0, 1.63M) but down a tick and 10% from 2016 (Hawaii-Michigan: 1.3, 2.14M).
The day’s other games each declined. BYU-Arizona had a 0.8 (-25%) and 1.29 million (-27%); Austin Peay-Georgia a 0.7 (-22%) and 1.19 million (-23%); Cincinnati-UCLA a 0.6 (-33%) and 1.01 million (-41%).
On Friday night, ESPN drew a 0.9 (-18%) and 1.41 million (-20%) from Western Kentucky-Wisconsin. As previously reported, Northwestern-Purdue scored ESPN’s smallest season opening audience in at least a decade.
College Gameday, which aired from the site of Michigan-Notre Dame, had 1.87 million — down 9% from last year’s opener from Alabama-FSU (2.05M) and down 13% from 2016 opener at Lambeau Field (2.15M).
On ESPNU, Friday’s Army-Duke game led the opening weekend slate with a 0.3 rating and 503,000 viewers (+13%).
All of the week one college football ratings are available here.
[Numbers from Nielsen via ShowBuzz Daily 9.5, Programming Insider 9.6]
