Served up as a sacrificial lamb to Game 7 of the ALCS, Kansas-TCU ratings were as low as one would expect.
Last Saturday’s Kansas-TCU college football game delivered a 0.7 rating and 1.2 million viewers on the FOX broadcast network, down 50% in ratings and 49% in viewership from Oklahoma-Texas Tech last year (1.4, 2.3M) and down 67% and 64% respectively from Utah-USC in 2015 (2.1, 3.3M).
The 0.7 rating is the lowest ever for college football on primetime over-the-air television. The previous mark was a 0.8 for Baylor-Iowa State on FOX in 2015.
The record-low numbers are no surprise. FOX almost certainly scheduled Kansas-TCU to provide the weakest possible counterprogramming to Game 7 of the Yankees-Astros ALCS on FS1 (5.4, 9.9M).
The network had much better numbers earlier in the day. Oklahoma-Kansas State drew a 1.9 and 3.0 million in the afternoon, up 111% in ratings and 119% in viewership from Utah-UCLA last year (0.9, 1.4M) and the season’s fifth-largest audience on the Fox Sports family of networks.
Maryland-Wisconsin started off the FOX tripleheader with a 1.0 and 1.5 million. There was no comparable window last year.
Over on FS1, Arizona State-Utah was the week’s top draw with a mere 0.25 and 387,000. West Virginia-Baylor, which was bumped down from FS1 to FS2 due to the baseball game, had a 0.18 and 325,000. That actually exceeded Iowa State-Texas Tech on FS1 earlier in the day (0.21, 307K).
[Wknd. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily 10.24]
