ABC had a soft college football weekend by its lofty standards, but was it due to Disney-YouTube TV blackout or historically tough competition from the World Series?
On the second full day of the Disney-YouTube TV blackout, ABC averaged 5.7 million viewers for its week ten college football tripleheader Saturday — down 20% from the 7.1 million the network was averaging coming into the weekend. (ABC is now averaging 6.9 million for the season, easily the most of any college football broadcaster.)
All three of the network’s windows were down week-over-week, but it should be noted that there was some unusually tough competition on Saturday.
Georgia-Florida led the way with 7.79 million viewers, helping ABC claim the largest college football audience of the weekend for a ninth-straight week. The Bulldogs’ win was essentially on par with Alabama-South Carolina the prior week (7.84M), and down about 5% from the 8.2 million ABC was averaging in that mid-afternoon window entering week ten.
Oklahoma-Tennessee took a much bigger hit, averaging 4.81 million in primetime Saturday night — down 28% from 6.76 million for Texas A&M-LSU the prior week and the least-watched primetime game on ABC all season. The Sooners’ win declined about 40% from the 8.0 million ABC averaged for primetime games in the first nine weeks, but it faced historically strong competition from Game 7 of the World Series.
The competing Dodgers-Blue Jays game averaged a whopping 27.33 million viewers across Fox Sports platforms, the largest Saturday night sports audience, excluding the NFL and the Olympics, since 1996 — and a higher figure than any Saturday college football game since the 1994 Orange Bowl. (Keep in mind Nielsen’s various methodological changes skew any historical comparisons.)
The ABC tripleheader opened with 4.51 million for Vanderbilt-Texas in the Noon ET window, down 31% from Mississippi-Oklahoma in that window a week earlier (6.55M), but on par with ABC’s Noon ET average coming into the weekend (4.5M). The Noon window also faced tougher than usual competition as FOX drew 7.19 million for Penn State-Ohio State, the third-largest audience all season for a game that did not air on ABC.
It is possible — even probable — that the YouTube TV blackout helped boost the competing FOX telecasts, as the affected viewers were not just going to sit out live sports for the weekend. At the same time, it was always likely that ABC would take a hit opposite a World Series Game 7, and the network’s two other windows suffered merely slight declines.
As for ESPN itself, the Saturday results were mixed. Notre Dame-Boston College led the way with 1.73 million, down 44% from Missouri-Vanderbilt the previous week, but that game was the site of “College Gameday.”
Then again, “Gameday” does not always guarantee an audience. This week’s edition took place from Cincinnati-Utah, and that game drew just 819,000 — down 37% from Utah-Colorado a week ago (1.29M) and ahead of only Cal-Oregon State in week one as the network’s least-watched game in that window this season. (The Game 7 competition no doubt played a role.)
ESPN posted gains for its two other games, as Miami-SMU drew 1.50 million in the Noon ET window and South Carolina-Mississippi had 1.32 million in primetime (opposite Game 7) — up 18 and 9 percent respectively from last year’s equivalent windows (Syracuse-Georgia Tech: 1.27M; Stanford-Miami: 1.21M).
As for “College Gameday” itself, the traveling studio show averaged 2.0 million viewers — below its nine-week season-average of 2.3 million and also down 20% from the prior week (2.5M). In part to counter the YouTube TV blackout, ESPN made the show available to watch for free on its app and also on Pat McAfee’s social media feed. It is unlikely that any viewing done via social media would be included in the Nielsen figure.
In the final hour, the “Gameday” audience of 2.7 million was not only down from 3.2 million last week, it topped the FOX “Big Noon Kickoff” by a modest 13% — down from 153% the week before. Some of that can probably be attributed to FOX having a more attractive Noon game than usual.
