FOX scored some of its best-ever college football results last weekend, not counting the bowl season.
Penn State/Wisconsin scored a 5.3 final rating and 9.2 million viewers in Saturday’s Big Ten Championship on FOX, down 7% in ratings and 6% in viewership from Michigan State/Iowa last year (5.7, 9.8M) but up 51% and 50% respectively from Ohio State/Wisconsin in 2014 (3.5, 6.2M).
The Nittany Lions’ win ranks third out of the six Big Ten title games (dates back to 2011), trailing both last year and Ohio State/Michigan State in 2013 (7.9, 13.0M). It also ranks third all-time among college football telecasts on FOX, excluding bowls, behind the same two games.
The Big Ten Championship scored the second-best college football numbers of the weekend, behind the SEC Championship earlier in the day (6.6, 11.1M) and ahead of the concurrent ACC Championship on ABC (3.3, 5.3M). It scored the sixth-largest audience of the season and the second-largest Big Ten audience.
The previous night, the Washington/Colorado Pac-12 title game had a 3.4 and 5.7 million viewers — up 113% in ratings and 120% in viewership from USC/Stanford on ESPN last year (1.6, 2.6M) but down 8% and 5%, respectively, from Oregon/Arizona on FOX in 2014 (3.7, 6.0M). The Huskies’ win trails only 2014 as the highest rated and most-watched Pac-12 Championship (dates back to 2011).
Friday’s game delivered the tenth-largest non-bowl audience on FOX.
Sandwiched between the two title games, the de-facto Big 12 championship between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State had a 3.1 and 4.8 million — marking the highest rated and most-watched edition of the “Bedlam” rivalry since 2012 (4.7, 7.3M). There was no comparable window on FOX last year.
In other Big 12 action, Fox Sports 1 scored a 0.6 and 1.0 million for Baylor/West Virginia opposite the SEC Championship Game — up 50% in ratings and 63% in viewership from West Virginia/Kansas State last year (0.4, 620K) but down a tick and 12% from Oklahoma/Oklahoma State in 2014 (0.7, 1.1M). Kansas State/TCU had a 0.3 and 431,000 earlier in the day; there was no comparable window last year.
(Wknd. numbers from Fox Sports)
