ESPN college football ratings got a big boost from a Buckeye blowout.
Ohio State-Iowa delivered a 2.3 rating and 4.0 million viewers on ESPN last Saturday, up 53% in ratings and 72% in viewership from Maryland-Michigan last year (1.5, 2.4M). ESPN’s Nielsen ratings now include streaming viewership; all comparisons are to last year’s TV+streaming numbers unless otherwise noted.
The Buckeyes’ blowout loss delivered the fourth-largest college football audience on cable all season. The ESPN family of networks have aired the 18 most-watched games on cable thus far.
For the weekend, it ranked second behind LSU-Alabama on CBS in primetime and comfortably topped the concurrent Oklahoma-Oklahoma State game on FS1 (1.4, 2.5M).
In other action, Auburn-Texas A&M had a 1.6 (+23%) and 2.6 million (+28%**) earlier in the day, and Texas-TCU drew a 1.1 (+22%) and 1.9 million (+28%**) later in the night.
The day’s only fumble was Arizona-USC, which had a 1.1 and 1.9 million — down a tick and 6% respectively from Washington-Cal last year (1.2, 2.1M).
As for the other ESPN networks, ESPN2 topped out at a 0.5 (+72%) and 876,000 (+94%**) for Iowa State-West Virginia. Figures for ESPNU were not immediately available.
Double-asterisk (**) indicates comparison to TV-only audience. The week ten college football ratings chart is available here.
[Wknd. numbers from ShowBuzz Daily 11.9, with additional info from ESPN PR 11.9]
