was the most widely watched college game this past weekend at 9.35mm viewers. The NFL averaged 21mm across the board.
Texas-Michigan
- Thread starter GrimReaper
- Start date
Does the NFL cook the books though by having limited offerings? Without paying ‘extra’ I get two 1pm games, one 4pm game, and one at night on Sunday. Probably a dozen other games on the same time as Texas/Michigan.
Add up all of those "dozen other games" and they probably don't total 21mm. NFL also has multiple games in the same time slots.
Surprising. There aren’t nearly that many viewers smart enough to keep up with DOOK.
and northwestern football.
So the top games at noon were Texas @ Michigan (#1, Fox) and Arkansas @ OkSU (#5, ABC). The next highest noon viewership was BTN with BG @ PSU and Akron @ Rutgers which combined came in at #14 overall which wasn't bad considering #1 and #5 were happening at the same time. The ESPN game with Kansas State @ Tulane was #18. And Disney is trying to use ESPN to squeeze DirecTV?? I know it didn't involve one of their SEC sweethearts, but still...........
Elsewhere at noon, Pitt @ Cincinnati kicked butt on ESPN2 at #24. I didn't see the game but I heard it was good. Too bad neither team has a fanbase.
Network wise, NBC has to be thrilled with #2 and #3. 9 million+ total viewers were treated to Deion and Notre Dame both losing. CBS didn't do bad at #8 considering it had two in-state teams which few people outside the midwest follow very closely. CBS has Notre Dame @ Purdue this weekend so it'll be interesting to see the numbers on that one.
Elsewhere at noon, Pitt @ Cincinnati kicked butt on ESPN2 at #24. I didn't see the game but I heard it was good. Too bad neither team has a fanbase.
Network wise, NBC has to be thrilled with #2 and #3. 9 million+ total viewers were treated to Deion and Notre Dame both losing. CBS didn't do bad at #8 considering it had two in-state teams which few people outside the midwest follow very closely. CBS has Notre Dame @ Purdue this weekend so it'll be interesting to see the numbers on that one.
Networks don't get paid for ordinal rankings of their telecasts They are paid for eyeballs on sets which is why the value of NFL media rights deals dwarfs those of college football.
I've seen references to college football being the "second most popular sport in the US." While i don't doubt it, I wonder how that's measured.
I'm not a media whiz but I get that the carrier of the #1 game doesn't get a fat check cut to them. But the rankings, at least to a guy like me, are a good indicator of what college football fans want to see in a game vs. game comparison. Not surprisingly, certain conferences and teams are more desirable to viewers regardless of network. But that's pretty obvious given the conferences to which the networks are paying the big bucks.
Broadcasters sell commercial slots well before the game hits the air. Question is whether advertisers are happy with the result. Media buyers are indifferent to ordinal rankings as opposed tothe number of eyeballs (in their target demographics) watching their commercials. UT-scUM would still rank number one at, say, 6.5mm viewers, but the ad sales people at Fox would be considerably less happy going forward.
Media buyer: You had an audience of 6.5 and you want us to pay for 9.
Ad sales: Well, uh, yeah.
Media buyer: GFY.
Can’t say I disagree with the sentiment but, for the sake of complete transparency, I did watch it twice (replayed Saturday morning), so…Surprising. There aren’t nearly that many viewers smart enough to keep up with DOOK.
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