A top-ten thriller between Washington and Oregon delivered another strong audience in a resurgent year for the soon-to-be-defunct Pac-12.
Saturday’s Oregon-Washington college football game averaged a 3.8 rating and 7.04 million viewers on ABC, marking the largest college football audience of the weekend and the 11th-largest of the season. The 11 games this season with at least seven million viewers exceeds last year’s regular season total of ten. (The full list of college football ratings this season can be seen here.)
Six of the 11 most-watched games this season have involved a Pac-12 team, more than any other conference. (Colorado is the primary reason for that, having played in five of those six games.) Three of the top ten have been Pac-12 conference games, again more than any other conference.
Those three games — Oregon-Washington, USC-Colorado on September 30 (7.24M) and Colorado-Oregon on September 23 (10.03M) — rank as the three most-watched Pac-12 conference games since 2012 (Stanford-Oregon: 8.3M).
Ratings and viewership for the Huskies’ narrow win tripled Oklahoma State-TCU in the same window last year (1.3, 2.14M).
Placing second for the week, Notre Dame’s rout of USC averaged a 3.4 and 6.43 million on NBC — the rivals’ most-watched game on NBC since 2009 (6.47M). Ratings fell a tick and viewership 4% from their meeting on ABC last season, which aired over Thanksgiving weekend (3.5, 6.68M).
The game ranks 13th for the season — giving the Pac-12 seven appearances in the top 13 — and second among NBC games behind Notre Dame’s loss to Ohio State (9.98M). NBC is in its first season carrying the Big Ten, but its three most-watched games have all been part of its preexisting Notre Dame package.
The SEC on CBS ranked third for the week with a 2.3 and 4.38 million for Texas A&M-Tennessee, down 62% from Alabama-Tennessee last year (6.1, 11.56M).
Rounding out the top five, Indiana-Michigan drew a 1.9 and 3.55 million on FOX “Big Noon Saturday” and the competing Arkansas-Alabama on ESPN was nearly identical at a 1.9 and 3.43 million. The FOX game plunged 47% in ratings and 45% in viewership from last year (Penn State-Michigan: 3.7, 6.45M) while the ESPN game surged 60% and 66% respectively (from Auburn-Mississippi: 1.2, 2.06M).
In the same Noon ET window, Georgia-Vanderbilt scored a 1.5 and 2.46 million on CBS and Syracuse-FSU a 1.2 (-9%) and 2.09 million (-11%) on ABC.
Not making the top five this week was Colorado, whose Friday night loss to Stanford averaged a 1.9 and 3.29 million. Additional details were previously posted here.
In other action, Miami-North Carolina averaged a 1.7 and 3.08 million on ABC’s Saturday Night Football — down from Clemson-FSU on ABC and ESPN2 last year (3.38M). In the same primetime window, Auburn-LSU drew a 1.1 (-10) and 2.16 million (-12) on ESPN and UCLA-Oregon State a 0.8 and 1.43 million (both -48%) on FOX.
