ABC scored its best college football opening weekend on record with an average 8.6 million viewers tuning in across four games.
Of the four games, three drew in over 10 million viewers, marking the first time ESPN networks have reached that milestone in a single weekend. The Sunday matchup between Notre Dame and Miami drew 10.8 million viewers and peaked with 11.8 million viewers — also marking ABC’s second-best Sunday Opener on record — while Saturday’s Alabama-Florida State game averaged 10.7 million viewers and the LSU and Clemson game scored 10.4 million viewers, according to Nielsen big data + panel figures.
The Alabama-Florida State game, which peaked with 12.9 million viewers, was the most-watched Week 1 game in the mid-afternoon window on record.
When including Saturday’s Syracuse and Tennessee game, which averaged 2.6 million viewers, this Saturday marked the network’s most-watched kickoff Saturday triple header on record with an average 7.8 million viewers.
Strong viewership for the opening weekend also boosted ESPN to score its best week 1 across, with the Sunday game between Virginia Tech and South Carolina scoring 5.4 million viewers and peaking with 6.5 million viewers and the TCU-North Carolina Labor Day game averaging 6.1 million viewers with a peak of 8.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen fast national numbers.
On ESPN, Friday’s Georgia Tech-Colorado game averaged 3.7 million viewers while the Nebraska-Cincinnati game averaged 3.3 million viewers and Thursday’s matchup between Boise State and South Florida scored an average 2 million viewers.
Additionally, College GameDay scored its most-watched show to date as it brought in 4 million viewers. The show peaked with 5.7 million viewers during its final 15 minutes from 11:45 to noon ET, when Lee Corso’s made his headgear pick, marking the highest quarter-hour peak ever for the Saturday morning program.
