A trio of SEC rivalry games hit viewership highs on ABC, led by the first matchup of Texas and Texas A&M in 13 years.
The renewal of the Texas-Texas A&M rivalry averaged a 4.4 rating and 9.46 million viewers on ABC, the largest audience on record for the series, which had not been played since 2011. (Keep in mind out-of-home viewing was not included in Nielsen viewership estimates prior to 2020.) The Longhorns’ win, which peaked with 10.6 million viewers, increased 77% from Georgia-Georgia Tech in the same window last year (5.33M).
As for this year’s matchup between Georgia and Georgia Tech, the Bulldogs’ eight-overtime win averaged 8.47 million viewers on ABC Black Friday — a record for that series and the most-watched college football game on the day after Thanksgiving since Arkansas-LSU on CBS in 2011 (10.4M). (Again keep in mind the out-of-home viewing caveat.)
While FOX topped the charts with Michigan-Ohio State, ABC scored three of the four most-watched college football games over the holiday weekend and five of the top seven. The Auburn-Alabama Iron Bowl placed fourth with 7.16 million on ABC Saturday afternoon, actually down from last year’s matchup on CBS, which saw Alabama narrowly avoid an upset (9.09M).
The Mississippi State-Mississippi Egg Bowl drew 4.33 million in the same midday timeslot on Black Friday, the largest audience for that rivalry since it last aired on broadcast television in 2014 (5.1M). Compared to last year, viewership soared 152% from UTSA-Tulane on ABC (1.72M) and a lesser 6% from last year’s comparable “SEC on CBS” window, Missouri-Arkansas (4.09M).
Rounding out the ABC slate, Tennessee-Vanderbilt drew 3.61 million in the Noon ET window on Saturday and Oklahoma State-Colorado 3.31 million in the same window on Friday — up 130% and 131% respectively from last year’s equivalent windows (Kentucky-Louisville: 1.57M; Miami-Boston College: 1.43M).
In other broadcast network action, NBC drew 3.60 million for Nebraska-Iowa on Friday night — up from Penn State-Michigan State last year (3.38M) — and 2.57 million for Washington-Oregon on Saturday. Figures for Notre Dame-USC on CBS were not immediately available.
Shifting to cable, ESPN topped out at 2.40 million for South Carolina-Clemson on Saturday afternoon, followed by Miami-Syracuse at 2.11 million (+185%) — up 20 and 185 percent respectively from last year’s equivalent windows (Texas A&M-LSU: 2.00M; Arizona-Arizona State: 740K). Primetime was a different story as Oklahoma-LSU drew 2.09 million and Houston-BYU 1.56 million, down 59 and 6 percent respectively from last year, when ESPN drew 5.07 million for undefeated Florida State against Florida and 1.66 million for Cal-UCLA.
As for this year’s moribund Florida State team, their loss to Florida drew 1.37 million on ESPN2, up nearly fourfold from Kansas-Cincinnati a year ago (374K).
Overall, the ESPN networks averaged 2.5 million viewers for the Thanksgiving weekend games, their highest average on that weekend since 2016 (2.6M).
Elsewhere over the holiday weekend, BTN averaged 1.10 million for regional action (Fresno State-UCLA or Maryland-Penn State) and CW finished out its Pac-12 slate with 399,000 for Wyoming-Washington State. Shifting to FCS playoff action, Tennessee State-Montana drew 263,000 on ESPN2.
(Nielsen estimates from ESPN PR, Programming Insider 12.4 a, b)
