The new college football season opened with a bang in the ratings, fueled by a slate of marquee games and a new era of Nielsen measurement.
Saturday’s Texas-Ohio State college football game averaged 16.62 million viewers on FOX, marking the largest week one college football audience on record, with the caveat that Nielsen’s “Big Data + Panel” metric dates back only three years. The previous week one record was 12.34 million for Alabama-Florida State on ABC in 2017, a figure that does not include “Big Data” — or out-of-home viewing, which was not included in Nielsen estimates until 2020.
The Buckeyes’ win, which peaked with 18.6 million in the 3:15 PM ET quarter-hour, ranks as the third-most watched regular season college football game ever on FOX.
Texas-Ohio State was one of four college football games in week one to top the ten million viewer mark. On ABC, Notre Dame-Miami averaged 10.8 million viewers on Sunday night, Florida State’s upset of Alabama drew 10.7 million Saturday afternoon, and LSU-Clemson drew 10.4 million in the season premiere of Saturday Night Football.
ABC averaged 8.6 million for its four games — with that average being dragged down by a mere 2.6 million for Syracuse-Tennessee opposite Ohio State-Texas — the network’s highest week one average on record.
It is not necessarily the case that “Big Data” is principally responsible for the sizable viewership. To begin with, the above-mentioned matchups were each high-quality pairings of iconic teams. Texas-Ohio State in particular was a #1 vs. #3 matchup of traditional powers that likely would have challenged the week one record books even before the days of out-of-home viewing.
In addition, it is entirely possible — even likely — that Nielsen’s February expansion of out-of-home viewing is playing a bigger role in the numbers than the shift to “Big Data.”
On ESPN, TCU’s Labor Day rout of North Carolina topped the week one charts with 6.1 million viewers (per Nielsen fast-nationals), followed by Virginia Tech-South Carolina at 5.4 million on Sunday afternoon. ESPN also drew 3.7 million for Georgia Tech-Colorado on Friday night.
As for the pregame shows, ESPN and ESPNU combined to averaged 4.0 million viewers for Lee Corso’s final appearance on “College Gameday,” including 5.7 million for the final quarter-hour that included Corso’s last headgear pick. FOX “Big Noon Kickoff” averaged 2.0 million.
