The penultimate season of the SEC on CBS opened with the week’s top college football audience.
Penn State-Auburn averaged a 2.3 rating and 4.05 million viewers in Saturday’s season premiere of the SEC on CBS, marking the highest rated and most-watched college football game of the weekend.
Ratings and viewership sank more than 40 percent from last year (Alabama-Florida) to rank as the lowest for the premiere of the SEC on CBS since 2018 (West Virginia-Tennessee: 1.6, 2.65M). Penn State’s blowout win also fell sharply from the same matchup last year, which aired in primetime on ABC (4.1, ~7.6M).
No other game in week three managed even a 2.0 rating. Ranking second for the weekend, Oklahoma-Nebraska on FOX and Miami-Texas A&M on ESPN tied at a 1.9 rating and 3.4 million viewers. Oklahoma’s blowout win declined double-digits from the same matchup in the same window last year, while the Aggies’ win soared triple-digits from last year’s equivalent Arizona State-BYU game.
Also closely packed together were Mississippi State-LSU on ESPN (1.6, 3.06M), Toledo-Ohio State on FOX (1.6, 3.05M), Georgia-South Carolina on ESPN (1.7, 3.00M) and Cal-Notre Dame on NBC (1.7, 2.91M). Not counting Toledo-Ohio State — for which there was no comparable year-ago window — each game increased double-digits.
In a rarity, ABC placed just eighth for its top game of the weekend, Michigan State-Washington on Saturday Night Football — down more than 60% from last year’s previously-mentioned Auburn-Penn State game. ABC also drew a 1.2 and 2.03 million for UConn-Michigan and a 0.8 and 1.39 million for Mississippi-Georgia Tech, also down double-digits.
The Mississippi-Georgia Tech game actually drew a lower rating and fewer viewers than the late night Fresno State-USC game on FOX, which drew a 0.9 and 1.62 million.
Shifting to weeknight action, FSU-Louisville drew a 1.6 and 2.75 million on ESPN back on Friday — up sharply from UCF-Louisville last year (1.1, ~1.9M) and ESPN’s second-largest Friday night college football audience since 2018.
The full list of college football TV ratings can be accessed here.
(Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 9.20, network PR)
