Apparently SEC football just means more to viewers across the country, as Georgia-Alabama notches the top audience so far this season.
Saturday’s Georgia-Alabama game unsurprisingly drew a large audience on ABC, claiming college football’s first eight-figure audience of the season. The game averaged 11.99 million viewers per Nielsen, beating out Texas-Michigan (9.19 million) on Fox in Week 2 as the most-watched college football game this year. At least for now.
The good times kept rolling across the board for the SEC and ABC, beating out Fox head-to-head in both Saturday afternoon windows. Starting at noon, Kentucky-Ole Miss averaged 3.99 million viewers on ABC while Fox’s Big Noon Saturday window averaged 3.60 million for Michigan-Minnesota.
Moving onto the afternoon SEC on ABC slot, Oklahoma-Auburn averaged 5.04 million viewers on ABC as compared to 4.08 million viewers for Deion Sanders and Colorado against UCF on Fox.
The fun didn’t stop there for ESPN. The network started the weekend strong as well. Friday’s Virginia Tech-Miami game, which ended in a controversial Hail Mary call, averaged 3.26 million viewers versus 1.93 million for Rutgers-Washington on Fox. The game was ESPN’s second most-watched Friday night college football game in the past six years, per Sports Media Watch.
ABC’s strong SEC triple-header shows just how powerful the network’s new deal with the conference can be. Lead-ins and lead-outs can often be just as crucial to a viewership number as the quality of a game. Having two conference bouts in the afternoon build momentum to a dandy like Georgia-Alabama at night is certainly a recipe for success.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.