For the first time all season, CBS Sports aired the weekend’s most-watched college football game in Week 9.
The CBS broadcast of Georgia’s win over Florida in the 3:30 p.m. ET window averaged 5.95 million viewers, the most-watched game of Saturday by a full million viewers. It’s also the sixth year in a row the rivalry game topped five million viewers.
CBS Sports’ presentation of Florida-Georgia at 3:30 PM, ET is the most-watched college football game of the week on any network: pic.twitter.com/5nLca8Ik3J
— CBS Sports PR (@CBSSportsGang) October 31, 2023
Not only did CBS win the week, the network dominated the 3:30 p.m. window. Fox’s broadcast of Oregon-Utah ranked second with 2.81 million viewers, followed by BYU-Texas on ABC at 2.38 million viewers and Pitt-Notre Dame on NBC with 1.89 million viewers. FS1 also pulled off an impressive win over ESPN in the window, averaging 1.02 million for Purdue-Nebraska compared to 928,000 for Duke-Louisville.
In primetime, NBC’s Big Ten coverage edged ABC’s Pac-12 matchup. Ohio State-Wisconsin was the second-most-watched game of the week with 4.87 million viewers, followed closely by Colorado-UCLA with 4.66 million viewers. ESPN’s best audience of the day came in primetime for Tennessee-Kentucky, which averaged 2.51 million viewers. Fox did not air a college football game in primetime due to its World Series Game 2 coverage, which won the night despite record-low viewership.
Fox once again claimed the noon window, despite lower-than-normal viewership across the board. Oklahoma-Kansas averaged 3.60 million viewers, nudging past the CBS broadcast of Indiana-Penn State with 3.40 million viewers. ABC and ESPN were further back, averaging 2.09 million for Florida State-Wake Forest and 1.90 million for South Carolina-Texas A&M, respectively.
For whatever it’s worth, ESPN’s choice to air Colorado in primetime on ABC rather than Washington seemed to be a smart decision from a viewership perspective, despite criticism a couple of weeks ago. The Huskies’ win over Stanford averaged 700,000 in primetime on FS1, the 17th-most-watched game of Week 9 (sandwiched between Syracuse-Virginia Tech on ESPN Thursday night and Clemson-NC State on The CW Saturday afternoon).
In Week 10, ABC has Notre Dame-Clemson at noon, while CBS has Ohio State-Rutgers and Fox has Kansas State-Texas in the same window. The 3:30 p.m. ET window features the Oklahoma-Oklahoma State Bedlam matchup on ABC, Missouri-Georgia on CBS, and Penn State-Maryland on Fox. Washington gets its primetime slot on ABC as it visits USC, while CBS has LSU-Alabama and NBC has Purdue-Michigan. Colorado once again returns to the late-night window, hosting Oregon State on ESPN.
[Data via Sports Media Watch]
