Sports Ratings Tracker

FOX averaged 4.28 million viewers for Iowa State-Iowa on “Big Noon Saturday,” unsurprisingly down from Texas-Michigan last year (9.2M), followed by 2.7 million for Delaware-Colorado.

Fueled by the previous week’s Texas-Ohio State game (16.6M), the FOX “Big Noon” window is now averaging 10.4 million viewers — up 52% from the same point last year. 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.

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.