The absence of Power 5 college football has not translated into bigger ratings for the smaller schools.
Monday’s BYU-Navy college football game averaged 1.15 million viewers on ESPN, marking the least-watched Labor Day night game in at least 16 years, and likely further back. Viewership plunged 80% from Notre Dame-Louisville last year (5.68M) and 79% from Virginia Tech-Florida State in 2018 (5.58M).
The numbers come with a laundry list of caveats. BYU-Navy was not ESPN’s first choice for the Labor Day slot, replacing a Georgia-Virginia game that was called off when the SEC elected to shift to a conference-only schedule.
The game faced unusually tough competition in the form of the NBA and NHL playoffs. It was trounced by TNT’s NBA doubleheader (Celtics-Raptors: 2.71M; Clippers-Nuggets: 3.45M) but edged the NHL on NBCSN (Islanders-Lightning: 958K).
Finally, it was a particularly nasty rout with BYU winning 55-3 in front of an empty stadium.
Monday’s game was not the most-watched of what would have ordinarily been a packed college football weekend. ESPN averaged a 0.7 rating and 1.23 million viewers for SMU-Texas State Saturday afternoon — down a third in ratings and 31% in viewership from South Carolina-North Carolina last year (1.05, 1.78M).
Arkansas State-Memphis averaged a 0.6 and 1.03 million last Saturday night, down 40% and 43% respectively from Georgia-Vanderbilt last year (1.0, 1.82M).
Finally, Eastern Kentucky-Marshall led off Saturday’s coverage with a 0.6 and 980,000 — down 40% and 45% respectively from South Alabama-Nebraska last year (1.0, 1.78M).
While Saturday’s declines were comparably modest, keep in mind that the games did not face much college football competition. Typically, there are so many games on at the same time that the audience is split across multiple networks.
Labor Day college football viewership
