Raise your hand if you had Illinois being involved in one of the most-watched college football games of the year.
There likely are not very many hands in the air, but the ESPN networks enjoyed a strong weekend thanks to some unexpected performances. The Fighting Illini’s nine overtime win over Penn State was a big part of the reason why.
The game aired in the noon eastern window on ABC. It recorded an average audience of 3.8 million viewers. Overtime, though, saw the peak number shoot through the roof. During the extra frames, as many as 7.4 million people were watching the game.
Another unexpectedly strong performance came from Tuscaloosa where the Alabama Crimson Tide extended its winning streak over the Tennessee Volunteers to 15 on ESPN. A number of mistakes by Bama kept the Vols in the game for a while.
The game averaged 4.7 million viewers. That makes Alabama’s win the most watched college football game on cable this year. It is also the most watched game between those two teams since 2016, when both came in with top ten rankings.
Oregon’s nail-biter win over UCLA also had a strong performance. It became one of the five most-watched PAC-12 matchups since 2017.
In total, ESPN and ABC accounted for two-thirds of all college football viewership this past weekend.
