Ratings Roundup: Tennessee-GT, Maryland-Texas, Friday CFB

Overnights sank for college football’s Labor Day game, Fox Sports 1 topped Saturday’s cable charts, and ESPN and ESPNU posted big gains for their Friday night games.

Tennessee-Georgia Tech Down Big on Labor Day

Monday’s Tennessee-Georgia Tech college football game pulled a 3.3 overnight rating on ESPN, down 38% from Mississippi-Florida State last year (5.3) and down 50% from Ohio State-Virginia Tech in 2015 (6.6). It was the lowest overnight for a primetime Labor Day game since Miami-Louisville three years ago (2.7). Knoxville, Tenn., led all markets with a 33.9 rating, followed by Nashville (18.0), Birmingham (16.4), Atlanta (12.8) and Memphis (9.5).

FS1 Pulls Saturday’s Top CFB Overnight on Cable

Fox Sports 1 pulled a 1.4 overnight rating for Saturday’s Maryland-Texas game, the day’s highest college football overnight on cable. Figures for ESPN’s games were not available. For the weekend, the Terrapins’ upset win ranks third on cable behind Ohio State-Indiana on Thursday (3.6) and the above-mentioned Tennessee-Georgia Tech game Monday night.

ESPN and ESPNU Up Big, FS1 Down, Friday Night

On Friday night, Utah State-Wisconsin delivered a 1.1 final rating and 1.8 million viewers on ESPN — up 57% in ratings and 64% in viewership from Colorado State-Colorado last year (0.7, 1.1M) — while Washington-Rutgers pulled a 0.6 (-25%) and 971,000 (-28%) on Fox Sports 1. Bringing up the rear, Navy-FAU drew 444,000 to ESPNU, up 210% from Toledo-Arkansas State last year (143K).

[Numbers from ESPN PR, Sports Business Daily 9.5, Programming Insider 9.5, ShowBuzz Daily 9.5]