ESPN scored one of its top Friday college football audiences in recent memory last week.
Last Friday’s Oklahoma-West Virginia college football game had a 3.0 rating and 5.63 million viewers on ESPN, up 140% in ratings and 163% in viewership from last year (Virginia Tech-Virginia: 1.3, 2.14M).
The Sooners’ high-scoring win delivered the third-largest Friday college football audience ever on ESPN. The top two are Oregon-Arizona in 2010 (7.79M) and West Virginia-Boston College in 1993 (5.64M), which also aired on Black Friday.
It was the top Black Friday game on any network since 2015, when Iowa-Nebraska had 6.19 million on ABC.
Earlier in the day, UCF-USF had 1.74 million; there was no comparable window last year.
ESPN did not fare nearly as well on Thanksgiving night. The Mississippi State-Mississippi Egg Bowl had just a 0.6 (-53%) and 1.11 million (-55%).
Shifting to Saturday, ESPN drew a 1.8 and 3.26 million for South Carolina-Clemson in primetime — down 18% in ratings and 19% in viewership from last year (2.2, 4.03M) but up 20% and 23% respectively from 2016 (1.5, 2.66M). Those windows featured the same matchup.
The Utah State-Boise State nightcap had a 0.7 and 1.08 million. In the afternoon, Syracuse-Boston College drew a 0.46 (-62%) and 765,000 (-63%) and Pittsburgh-Miami a 0.50 (-55%) and 919,000 (-52%).
College Gameday started the day off with a season-high 2.30 million viewers, up slightly from last year (2.29M) but down 12% from 2016, the last time it took place from Michigan-Ohio State (2.61M).
Elsewhere on the ESPN family of networks, Minnesota-Wisconsin scored a 0.7 and 1.03 million on ESPN2 — one of just ten games on the network this season to cross the million viewer threshold.
The full list of week twelve college football ratings is available here.
[Numbers from Nielsen via ShowBuzz Daily 11.28, ESPN PR]
