A lackluster schedule resulted in mostly middling college football TV ratings over the weekend.
Saturday’s Michigan-Wisconsin college football game delivered a 3.5 overnight rating on FOX, the highest of the season for a Noon ET game on any network. The previous high was a 2.9 for three separate Noon games on ABC.
The 3.5 was the highest college football overnight of the weekend, marking the third time this season — and just the third time ever — that FOX has topped the charts. It comfortably topped the second-place finisher, UCLA-USC on ABC’s Saturday Night Football.
Speaking of, the Trojans’ win delivered a 2.9 overnight — up 16% from Oklahoma-West Virginia last year (2.5) and up 7% from TCU-Oklahoma in 2015 (2.7). Compared to the teams’ meeting last season, which aired on ESPN in a late night window, overnights rose 61% from a 1.8.
Earlier in the day, ABC scored a 2.7 for Virginia-Miami (+104%), ranking third for the weekend.
In the fourth-place spot, NBC scored a 2.3 overnight for Navy-Notre Dame, up 44% from Notre Dame’s seventh and final home game last year, against Virginia Tech (1.6). It was the top telecast in its timeslot, edging the weekend’s fifth-place finishers — Illinois-Ohio State on ABC (2.2, +23%) and Kentucky-Georgia on CBS (2.2, +47%).
Rounding out the weekend’s action, ESPN drew a 1.6 for LSU-Tennessee (+23%), FOX drew a 1.3 for Maryland-Michigan State (-13%) and a 1.1 for Stanford-Cal (-31%), and Mississippi State-Arkansas had a mere 1.0 on CBS — the lowest for any SEC game on CBS in recent memory.
[Wknd. numbers via Sports Business Daily 11.20, ESPN]
