Ratings predictions for a marquee weekend of college football games, including Colorado’s big test against Oregon and Ohio State’s showdown with Notre Dame. Plus: Week 3 of the NFL season and more.
Expect another big audience for Deion, Colorado
The long-irrelevant Colorado Buffaloes have become arguably the biggest story in sports under new coach Deion Sanders. Their 3-0 record over a trio of currently unranked teams — TCU, Nebraska and Colorado State — may not look overly impressive on paper, but it marks quite the turnaround from last year’s 1-11 campaign. Saturday marks their biggest test yet as they face an Oregon team expected to contend for a playoff berth.
As much as Colorado has defied expectations on the field, the bigger surprise may be in the ratings. The Buffaloes played just one game with a seven-figure audience all of last season, their opener against TCU (1.25M). Their first game this season, against the same Horned Frogs, averaged 7.26 million — a massive figure could be explained by curiosity surrounding Sanders’ debut, the quality of the game, and the quality of the opponent. Surely, fewer viewers would tune-in the following week against a lesser Nebraska squad. Instead, Colorado’s rout of the Cornhuskers averaged an even larger audience of 8.73 million.
Those first two games aired in a Noon ET window on broadcast television (FOX) against power conference opponents. It would be highly improbable for their third game — against middling Colorado State in a 10 PM ET slot on cable — to come anywhere close to those levels. Instead, the Buffaloes’ double-overtime win surpassed any reasonable expectations with 9.3 million viewers, the largest audience of the season on any network and one of the five most-watched regular season college football games ever on the ESPN cable networks.
Interest in Sanders’ Buffaloes is clearly building and seems likely to reach an apex Saturday against Oregon. The game will be Colorado’s first of the season to air in the afternoon hours nationwide (the first two games began at 9 AM on the West Coast and the third game ended at 2:30 AM on the East Coast). It is the team’s first game against a mainstream draw in its own right (TCU is a successful program, but generally does not drive viewership on its own). Most importantly, it is a game that will help determine whether the Buffaloes are a true contender, as opposed to an interesting early season story.
If Colorado can attract more than nine million viewers on cable against Colorado State, one can only imagine how many viewers Saturday’s game can draw. Last year’s top regular season audience was 17.14 million viewers for Michigan-Ohio State, the biggest rivalry in the sport and one that benefits from the elevated viewing of Thanksgiving weekend. That figure seems out-of-reach. Outside of that, the top audiences were 13.06 million for Tennessee-Georgia and 11.56 million for Alabama-Tennessee, both of which aired in the same 3:30 PM ET window that Saturday’s game will occupy. Barring a blowout, look for viewership to land in that range.
CFB: #19 Colorado – #10 Oregon (3:30p Sat ABC). Prediction: 12.56M.
More CFB predictions on a jam-packed Saturday
In any other year, a top ten matchup of Ohio State and Notre Dame would be the clear favorite to deliver the top college football audience of the week. It may yet still top the charts; Colorado’s first two games this season ranked second for their respective weeks behind marquee matchups FSU-LSU in week one (9.17M) and Texas-Alabama in week two (8.76M).
It has thus far proven foolish this season to bet against the Buffaloes on the field or in the ratings, so the prediction here is a second-place finish for Notre Dame’s highest-profile home game in years. Nonetheless, NBC has a good chance to deliver its largest Notre Dame audience since the “Bush push” of 2005. The current mark is north of 10 million for Clemson-Notre Dame in 2020, a game that had to compete with a presidential victory speech. Barring a blowout, that number should be in play.
CFB: #6 Ohio State – #9 Notre Dame (7:30p Sat NBC). Prediction: 10.26M.
This is a transition year for CBS college football, the final year of its SEC contract and the first of its deal with the Big Ten. The network’s mid-afternoon window still belongs to the SEC, which means that Big Ten games will have to fit into whatever other timeslots are available. This week, that means a primetime slot for Iowa-Penn State, as the Big Ten’s primetime partner NBC is otherwise occupied by Ohio State-Notre Dame.
Notably, CBS is sending its #1 team of Brad Nessler and Gary Danielson to Iowa-Penn State, marking the first time in recent memory that the network’s top SEC game will be called by a secondary broadcast team. That said SEC game involves Alabama — albeit a struggling version of Alabama — makes the decision particularly telling. If CBS is already starting to prioritize the Big Ten, do not expect viewers to follow. Look for the SEC game to comfortably outpace its Big Ten counterpart.
CFB: #15 Mississippi – #13 Alabama and #24 Iowa – #7 Penn State (3:30 and 7:30p Sat CBS). Predictions: 4.48M and 3.45M.
The tables have turned in the FSU-Clemson rivalry, with the long-dormant Seminoles ranked in the top five and Tigers ranked not at all. Nonetheless, a road game at Clemson bodes dangerous for an FSU team that was lucky to escape Boston College last week. In a quiet Noon ET window, expect a strong number if the game is even remotely close. In the ideal scenario for ABC, a dramatic finish will get an extra boost from viewers tuning in for Colorado-Oregon, creating a large peak audience.
CFB: #4 FSU – Clemson (Noon Sat ABC). Prediction: 5.92M.
Predictions for a quiet week in the pros
FOX gets the Chiefs and Cowboys in its national window on Sunday, but unfortunately for the network the teams will not be facing each other. Two-thirds of the country get Kansas City against the self-destructing Bears, while the remainder will see Dallas against the subpar Cardinals. It is hard to imagine viewership measuring up to last year, when coverage featured Patriots-Packers in most markets (24.65M).
NFL: mostly Bears-Chiefs (4:25p Sun FOX). Prediction: 22.75M.
For the second-straight week, ESPN and ABC present a split Monday Night Football doubleheader. In a reversal from last week, ABC has the early game and ESPN the late game. The timeslot change could impact the numbers, but not change the outcome: ABC’s game will again comfortably outdraw the ESPN matchup. Expect a narrower margin, though. ABC more-than-doubled ESPN last week (15.4 to 7.0M).
NFL: Eagles-Buccaneers (7:15p Mon ABC) & Rams-Bengals (8:15p Mon ESPN). Predictions: 13.02 and 8.98M.
Additional predictions
As usual, Sunday Night Baseball has lost much of its audience since the NFL season started. Both games opposite the NFL this season have failed to crack even 800,000 viewers. Do not expect that to change in this week’s season finale.
MLB: Giants-Dodgers (7:10p Sun ESPN). Prediction: 727K.
NASCAR has had a couple of rough weeks since the NFL season started, and there is no reason to believe things will turn around at Texas, one of the more enervating tracks on the schedule. Last year’s race averaged 1.91 million viewers.
NASCAR Cup Series playoffs: Texas (3:30p Sun USA). Prediction: 1.75M.
Previous results
— NFL national window (FOX): mostly Packers-Bears. Prediction: 18.01M; result: 16.27M
— NFL national window (CBS): mostly Eagles-Patriots. Prediction: 18.25M; result: 21.35M
— NFL Sunday Night Football: Cowboys-Giants. Prediction: 22.15M; result: 20.18M
— NFL Monday Night Football: Bills-Jets. Prediction: 21.01M; result: 22.67M
— US Open women’s final: Gauff-Sabalenka. Prediction: 3.13Ml result: 3.42M
— US Open men’s final: Djokovic-Medvedev. Prediction: 2.24M; result: 2.32M
— CFB: Nebraska-Colorado: Prediction: 5.75M; result: 8.73M
— CFB: Texas-Alabama. Prediction: 6.18M; result: 8.76M
— FIBA World Cup Final: Germany-Serbia. Prediction: 174K; result: 116K
