Aided by an unusually weak ESPN tripleheader, Fox Sports 1 took top cable honors on college football’s first Saturday of the season.
Saturday’s Maryland-Texas college football game delivered a 1.2 rating and 2.0 million viewers on Fox Sports 1, up 200% in ratings and 160% in viewership from Missouri-West Virginia last year (0.4, 786K) and the day’s highest rated and most-watched game on cable.
Maryland’s upset win, which had 2.1 million with streaming viewership included, marked the first time ever that FS1 has owned the top cable audience on any college football Saturday. ESPN’s top game of the day, BYU-LSU, had a 1.0 and 1.8 million.
Later in the day, FS1 pulled a 0.24 (-40%) and 436,000 (-40%) for Montana State-Washington State.
Over on the FOX broadcast network, Texas A&M-UCLA drew a 1.9 and 3.2 million on Sunday night, marking the largest opening weekend audience ever on the Fox Sports family of networks. To put that in perspective, the overall opening weekend record is 12.3 million viewers, set by ABC for Alabama-Florida State the previous night.
Also on FOX, Purdue-Louisville had a 1.1 and 1.8 million Saturday night and UTEP-Oklahoma had a 0.7 and 1.1 million Saturday afternoon. FOX did not air any opening weekend games last year.
[Wknd. numbers from Fox Sports, ShowBuzz Daily 9.6]
