A college football tripleheader featuring some of the highest profile teams in the country still declined on ESPN last week.
Last Saturday’s Mississippi/Texas A&M college football game drew a 2.5 final rating and 4.1 million viewers on ESPN, down 22% in ratings and 20% in viewership from the same matchup last year (3.2, 5.1M) and down 32% in both measures from South Carolina/LSU in an earlier window last year (3.7, 6.0M).
This marks the fourth straight week that an SEC team has played in ESPN’s top telecast of the week.
Alabama/Arkansas earlier in the evening drew a 2.2 and 3.7 million, down 15% in ratings and 10% in viewership from last year’s Michigan/Penn State game (2.6, 4.0M). There was no comparable window in 2012.
Finally, the Noon ET FSU/Syracuse game drew a 1.3 and 1.9 million, down 38% in ratings and 35% in viewership from Missouri/Georgia last year (2.1, 3.0M) and down 7% in both measures from Iowa/Michigan State in 2012 (1.4, 2.1M).
Shifting to ESPN2, the Penn State/Michigan game drew a 1.4 and 2.4 million on ESPN2 Saturday night — down a tick from last year and down 8% in viewership from Alabama/Kentucky last year (1.5, 2.6M). The USC/Arizona nightcap drew a 1.2 and 1.8 million, up 71% and 85%, respectively, from last year’s Cal/UCLA game (0.7, 966K).
Louisville/Clemson topped the charts on ESPNU with a 0.3 and 568,000 viewers, up a tick in ratings and 61% in viewership from Virginia/Maryland last year (0.2, 353K).
(Last week’s numbers from Awful Announcing)
