After being called off the past two years, college football’s return to Dublin delivered a solid “week zero” audience for FOX.
Saturday’s Nebraska-Northwestern college football game from Dublin, Ireland, averaged a 2.5 rating and 4.42 million viewers on FOX, up 32% in ratings and 35% in viewership from Nebraska-Illinois in the same window last year (1.9, 3.27M). The Wildcats’ win was easily the most-watched game of “week zero,” with none of the other games on Nielsen rated television cracking even 600,000 viewers.
In the six year run of “week zero” games, Nebraska-Northwestern ranks as the second-most watched behind Miami-Florida on ESPN three years ago (3.4, 6.09M). For the weekend, it ranked second among all sports programs behind Sunday’s Lions-Steelers NFL preseason game on CBS.
The game marked college football’s return to Dublin, Ireland, after the previous two games planned for site — Nebraska-Illinois last year and Notre Dame-Navy two years ago — were relocated to the United States.
Ranking a distant second for “week zero” was the Stephen F. Austin-Jacksonville State FCS Kickoff on ESPN, which averaged a 0.30 and 541,000 — down from Hawaii-UCLA in the same window last year (0.6, ~976K). It led a competitive midafternoon window that also included UConn-Utah State on FS1 (517K) and Wyoming-Illinois on BTN (512K).
ESPN’s primetime Howard-Alabama State game drew a 0.26 and 485,000 — down sharply from Alcorn State-NC Central last year (0.6, ~1.00M) — while ESPN2 chipped in a 0.19 and 304,000 for Nevada-New Mexico State in a late night window.
ESPN’s College Gameday averaged more viewers than any actual game on cable, scoring 1.06 million for an abbreviated two-hour edition that led into high school football. The FOX pregame show averaged 1.7 million leading into Nebraska-Illinois.
