Sports Ratings Tracker

Last weekend’s Georgia-Tennessee college football game averaged 12.58 million viewers on ABC, marking the second-largest audience of the season, behind only Texas-Ohio State on FOX in week one (16.62M). With the caveat that Nielsen has changed its methodology in the past year, the Bulldogs’ win ranks as the fourth-most watched regular season game on ABC in the past decade.

ABC also drew 7.64 million for Florida-LSU in primetime and 4.51 million for Wisconsin-Alabama in the Noon ET window. ESPN actually won the Noon window with 4.76 million for Georgia Tech’s upset of Clemson.

Rounding out the top five last weekend, NBC averaged 6.2 million for Texas A&M-Notre Dame, a figure that combines Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.

For a list of select college football viewership from last weekend, see this page.

Michigan-Oklahoma averaged 9.7 million viewers on the latest edition of ABC’s “Saturday Night Football,” the network’s most-watched week two game since 2006 and the fifth-largest audience of the young season. Keep in mind that between Nielsen’s new “Big Data + Panel” methodology and offseason expansion of out-of-home viewing, this season’s viewership figures have built-in advantages over all previous years.

ABC also averaged 4.8 million for Mississippi-Kentucky and 3.7 million for San Jose State-Texas. The network is averaging 7.5 million viewers through two weeks, the highest at this point of the season since 2006, with the above caveats regarding Nielsen methodologies.

The ESPN cable networks topped out at 2.2 million for Illinois-Duke, followed by 1.8 million for Kansas-Missouri. The ESPN networks are averaging 3.2 million, the highest through two weeks since 2009, again with caveats regarding changes in Nielsen measurement.

The latest edition of ESPN’s “College Gameday” averaged 2.6 million viewers across ESPN and ESPNU, the second-largest audience ever for the show — with the caveat that Nielsen’s “Big Data” and out-of-home metrics are likely the only reason why viewership surpassed the previous #2 show, a November 2007 edition from the site of a Missouri-Kansas game (2.62M).

During the 11 AM ET hour, “Gameday” averaged 3.3 million — surpassing “Big Noon Kickoff” on FOX at 2.58 million.

Saturday’s Texas-Ohio State college football game averaged 16.62 million viewers on FOX, marking the largest week one college football audience on record, with the caveat that Nielsen’s “Big Data + Panel” metric dates back only three years.

The Buckeyes’ win was one of four college football games in week one to top the ten million viewer mark. On ABC, Notre Dame-Miami averaged 10.8 million viewers on Sunday night, Florida State’s upset of Alabama drew 10.7 million Saturday afternoon, and LSU-Clemson drew 10.4 million in the season premiere of Saturday Night Football.

For more, see this article.

The Week 1 edition of ESPN’s “College Gameday,” which marked the final appearance of the retiring Lee Corso, averaged 3.5 million viewers according to Nielsen fast-nationals — the largest audience ever for the show. As might go without saying, viewership peaked in the final quarter-hour — when Corso made his final headgear pick — at 5.1 million viewers.

For more on the numbers, see this article.

Last weekend’s Kansas State-Iowa State college football game from Dublin, Ireland, topped the “week zero” slate with 4.01 million viewers across ESPN and ESPNU, down 20% from Florida State-Georgia Tech last year (4.99M), but up from Notre Dame-Navy on NBC two years ago (3.56M).

For more on the “week zero” numbers, see this article.