For the third time in five weeks, the Big Ten — and Ohio State in particular — topped the college football ratings charts.
Indiana-Ohio State averaged a 3.7 rating and 6.36 million viewers on FOX Big Noon Saturday over the weekend, marking the third-highest rated and fourth-most watched college football game on any network this season. The Big Ten, which began its season a month ago, accounts for four of the top ten audiences thus far — matching the SEC for the most of any conference.
In the five weeks since it began its delayed season, the Big Ten has generated the week’s top college football audience three times — with each of those chart-toppers involving Ohio State.
The conference took top two spots this week, with ABC’s Wisconsin-Northwestern game ranking second at a 2.35 and 4.25 million.
Both games were up substantially from the same week of last season. Indiana-Ohio State jumped 48% in ratings and 61% in viewership (from Michigan State-Michigan: 2.5, 3.94M) and Wisconsin-Northwestern 96% and 122% respectively (from Wake Forest-Clemson: 1.2, 1.91M).
In other action, the Oklahoma State-Oklahoma “Bedlam” game averaged a 2.3 and 4.10 million on ABC’s Saturday Night Football — down 41% in ratings and 40% in viewership from Oklahoma-Baylor last year (3.9, 6.79M). Compared to last year’s game between the rivals, which aired on FOX over Thanksgiving weekend, ratings fell 30% (from 3.2) and viewership 29% (from 5.82M).
Shifting to the SEC, Tennessee-Auburn averaged 2.38 million viewers across the traditional broadcast on ESPN (2.05M) and a Skycast simulcast on ESPNU (327K). The combined audience declined 10% from LSU-Mississippi State on ESPN last season (2.63M).
Florida-Vanderbilt, which moved up from ESPN to ABC at the last minute, averaged a 1.2 and 2.02 million — down 37% and 31% respectively from last year (Indiana-Penn State: 1.9, 2.93M). It was the first SEC conference game on ABC in recent memory.
Due to postponements, there was no SEC game on CBS this week. The network instead carried San Diego State-Nevada, which averaged a 0.6 and 859,000 — the least-watched game on a broadcast network all season. The previous low was 998,000 for UCF-ECU on ABC in week four, and the previous low for CBS was 1.25 million for Appalachian State-Marshall in week three.
CBS ranked only fifth in the 3:30 PM ET window on Saturday, even trailing ESPN2 — which scored its largest audience of the season with a 0.6 and 1.08 million for UCLA-Oregon.
Postponements also hurt ESPN, which lost Florida-Vanderbilt to ABC after Clemson-Florida State was called off. The network ended up with a 0.53 and 848,000 for Appalachian State-Coastal Carolina, ahead of only Memphis-Cincinnati in week nine (0.44, 679K) as its least-watched Noon ET game this season.
For the second time in three weeks, ESPN averaged fewer viewers in the Noon ET window than did FS1 — which pulled a 0.52 and 974,000 for Illinois-Nebraska.
The full list of 2020 college football ratings is available here.
Most-watched college football games this season
