America loves football. That was proven again over the holiday weekend as ratings for top college football matchups on both FOX and ABC were revealed. They left network executives and conference commissioners with a lot to smile about.
The good news started for FOX on Thursday. Ohio State’s comeback win over Minnesota was one of the network’s ten most-watched games ever. The audience peaked at just over 7 million viewers.
ABC dominated on Saturday. The network’s triple-header averaged over 5 million viewers, making it the best opening Saturday triple header for ABC since 2017. All three windows showed growth from the same spots in 2019.
The day was dominated by Georgia’s 10-3 win over Clemson. The matchup between two top-five teams averaged just under 8 million viewers. That number puts it on pace to be the 2nd most-watched game of an opening weekend in the last 15 years on any network.
FOX had not yet released its numbers for Saturday’s games as of this article being published.
Sunday was also kind to ABC. The barn-burner between Notre Dame and Florida State became the second most-watched kickoff Sunday game ever. The game averaged an audience of 7.1 million viewers, with the audience peaking at 8.8 million to see the Fighting Irish escape with a win in overtime.
