A rare Oklahoma-Texas rematch delivered the strongest Big 12 overnight rating in nine years.
Saturday’s Oklahoma-Texas Big 12 Championship Game delivered a 6.8 overnight rating on ABC, up 58% from last year on FOX (Oklahoma-TCU: 4.3). There was no Big 12 title game from 2011-16.
The Sooners’ narrow win, which peaked at an 8.7 in the fourth quarter, delivered the third-highest overnight rating of the college football season. The SEC Championship on CBS later in the day had a 10.5 and Michigan-Ohio State on FOX had an 8.0 the previous week (8.0).
It also ranks as the top Big 12 conference game in nine years — since the 2009 Big 12 Championship (Texas-Nebraska: 7.6).
Overnights jumped 58% from the season’s previous meeting between Oklahoma and Texas, which aired on FOX in October (4.3). The 6.8 is the highest for the rivalry since their #2 vs. #3 matchup in 2002, which aired regionally on ABC (7.2).
Later in the day, the Ohio State-Northwestern Big Ten Championship had a 5.6 overnight on FOX — down 30% from last year (Ohio State-Wisconsin: 8.0), but up a tick from 2016 (Penn State-Wisconsin: 5.5).
FOX also scored a 3.1 overnight for Friday’s Washington-Utah Pac-12 Championship, up 15% from last year on ESPN, but down 21% from 2016 on FOX (Washington State-Colorado: 3.9).
Overnights were not immediately available for the Clemson-Pittsburgh ACC Championship or UCF-Memphis American Athletic Championship on ABC.
[Numbers from ESPN PR/Twitter 12.2 a, b; Fox Sports PR 12.2 a, b]
