The resumption of the Notre Dame-Michigan rivalry generated the team’s largest NBC audience in 13 years.
Last Saturday’s Michigan-Notre Dame college football game drew a 4.0 rating and 7.09 million viewers on NBC, up 300% in ratings and 349% in viewership from the team’s opener last season against Temple, which aired during the afternoon (1.0, 1.58M). Including the streaming audience of 89,000 — a Notre Dame record on NBC — it had 7.18 million.
Compared to Notre Dame’s 2016 opener against Texas, ratings fell 38% and viewership 35% from a 6.4 and 10.95 million. That game aired on a Sunday night on ABC and did not face any competing college football games.
Notre Dame’s win, which peaked at a 4.5 and 7.95 million from 10:45-11 PM ET, scored the team’s largest audience on NBC since 2005. That year, an overtime loss to undefeated defending national champion USC delivered 10.1 million. It tied the team’s highest rating on NBC since 2010 against Michigan (4.5), matching a 2012 game against Michigan.
The game also ranks as NBC’s highest rated Notre Dame opener since 2006 (vs. Penn State: 4.7) and most-watched since 1994 against Michigan. Overall, it was NBC’s third-most watched season opener since acquiring rights, behind 1994 and 1992, also against Michigan.
Saturday marked the first game between Notre Dame and Michigan in four years. Compared to their prior meeting in 2014, a 31-0 Notre Dame rout, ratings increased 48% and viewership 53% from a 2.7 and 4.63 million. Compared to their 2013 matchup on ESPN, ratings fell 25% and viewership 18% from a 5.3 and 8.65 million.
Michigan-Notre Dame was the highest rated and most-watched college football game of the season’s opening weekend. Miami-LSU was a close second with a 3.8 and 6.55 million on ABC Sunday night. Head-to-head, it comfortably topped ABC’s Louisville-Alabama game (2.7, 4.54M).
This is the first time in recent memory that the the top game of the season’s opening weekend did not air on ESPN or ABC.
The full list of week one college football ratings is available here.
[Wknd. numbers from NBC Sports PR 9.4]
