The Big Ten continues to generate the season’s strongest college football ratings.
Last Saturday’s Wisconsin-Michigan college football game earned a 3.5 rating and 6.04 million viewers on ABC, up 75% in ratings and 89% in viewership from last year (Utah-USC: 2.0, 3.19M) but down a third in both measures from 2016 (Ohio State-Wisconsin: 5.2, 8.96M).
Including streaming viewership, the game had 6.10 million.
The Wolverines’ blowout win delivered the fifth-largest audience of the season. Four of the top five games have involved at least one Big Ten team, including three intra-conference matchups. Notably, given Fox Sports has acquired half of the Big Ten TV package, all four Big Ten games in the top five have aired on ABC.
As should be no surprise, it was the top college football game of week seven, edging Georgia-LSU on CBS earlier in the day (3.3, 5.54M). That was a reversal from the overnights, which saw UGA-LSU take top honors.
It also topped the competing Astros-Red Sox MLB Postseason game on TBS (3.3, 5.82M).
ABC did not fare as well earlier in the day. The network drew a 1.9 and 2.99 million for regional coverage of either Washington-Oregon or UCF-Memphis, down 10% in ratings and 12% in viewership from last year (GT-Miami: 2.1, 3.38M) and down 17% and 19% respectively from regional action in 2016 (2.3, 3.71M).
Including streaming, and ‘reverse mirror’ coverage on ESPN2, the window had 3.33 million.
The Noon ET Nebraska-Northwestern game brought up the rear with a 1.7 (-37%) and 2.43 million (-41%).
The full list of week seven college football ratings is available here.
[Numbers from ESPN PR, Nielsen via ShowBuzz Daily 10.16]
