Matchups were a likely factor, but it is surely no coincidence that ABC scored its best college football numbers in weeks after returning to YouTube TV.
ABC averaged 8.2 million viewers for its college football tripleheader on Saturday, marking the network’s most-watched college football weekend since week one of the season (8.6M). The network averaged 10.48 million for Oklahoma-Alabama and 10.43 million for Texas-Georgia, ranking as the season’s fifth and seventh most-watched games on any network.
As might go without saying, those results were a considerable improvement over the two prior weeks, when ABC was blacked out on YouTube TV. During that two-week period, none of the network’s six games reached the eight million viewer mark, topping out at 7.8 million for Georgia-Florida.
Compared to the previous weekend, Oklahoma’s narrow win over Alabama — which peaked with 14.1 million viewers — increased 115 percent from Texas A&M-Missouri (4.87M). Georgia’s blowout of Texas, which peaked with 12.1 million, increased 38% from LSU-Alabama (7.54M). It should be noted that this week’s games were high-profile matchups featuring four of the nation’s top 11 teams. By comparison, Missouri was ranked #22 and LSU unranked the prior week.
There is a strong argument that the quality of the matchups was a bigger factor in viewership than the end of the YouTube TV blackout. Both games performed well above what ABC was averaging in those windows for the nine weeks before the blackout, 8.2 and 8.0 million respectively.
And ABC did not fare well for its Noon ET window, a Notre Dame-Pittsburgh matchup that averaged 3.96 million — actually down from BYU-Texas Tech the previous week (3.98M) and below the 4.5 million ABC averaged in that window before the blackout.
Notre Dame’s win, which peaked with 4.5 million, ranks as the fifth-least watched game on ABC all season. It was only the fifth non-SEC contest on ABC this season, with those matchups accounting for three of the network’s six least-watched games.
For the second-straight week, ESPN benefited from the decision to air a non-SEC game on ABC. The cable network averaged 4.28 million for Texas A&M’s comeback win over South Carolina, marking its most-watched Saturday game since week three. It was also the day’s most-watched Noon ET game on any network, surpassing the FOX “Big Noon” game.
ESPN also averaged 2.56 million for Clemson-Louisville last Friday night and 2.50 million for Florida-Mississippi on Saturday night, the network’s largest audiences in those respective windows since week eight (Louisville-Miami: 3.41M; Kentucky-Texas: 2.64M). That spans the two blackout weeks and the week before the blackout began.
“College Gameday” (2.6M) also delivered its largest audience since week eight (2.7M), comfortably surpassing the two blackout weeks (2.0 and 2.2 million). The final hour of the show beat FOX “Big Noon Kickoff” by its largest margin (+182%) since week eight as well (+205%).
College Gameday and ABC college football viewership
Before, during and after YouTube TV blackout
Notably, ESPN/ABC delivered the top four audiences of the week — the company’s first sweep of the top four since week one, when ABC had four games.
During the blackout, the FOX “Big Noon” window placed second in both weeks. That window ranked fifth this week, with Michigan-Northwestern drawing 3.76 million — well below Indiana-Penn State last week (6.03M) and Penn State-Ohio State two weeks prior (7.19M), the network’s two most-watched games since week one.
But again, there is an argument to be made that much of that is due to game quality. Indiana and Ohio State are the nation’s top two teams and the Hoosiers barely eked out a win over Penn State last week. By comparison, Michigan was #18 entering last week’s game against unranked Northwestern.
