Networks owned by The Walt Disney Company attained several viewership milestones over the weekend surrounding sports coverage. College football and Little League Baseball drew substantial audiences as teams yearned for key victories on the field. ESPN averaged 4.99 million viewers for its Week 0 presentation of the Aer Lingus College Football Classic between Florida State and Georgia Tech in Dublin, Ireland, according to a report by Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch.
The matchup ended on a game-winning kick to deliver an upset victory for Georgia Tech, encompassing a presentation indicative of the largest Week 0 football game since a prime-time game between Miami and Florida in 2019. Play-by-play announcer Joe Tessitore, analyst Jesse Palmer and reporter Katie George called the action live on ESPN from Aviva Stadium.
As compared to last year’s college football matchup in Ireland between Navy and Notre Dame, this year’s game resulted in a 40% rise in average viewership. The game also garnered the largest 12 p.m. EST college football audience on ESPN since Ohio State faced Michigan in 2016 as the only game in the window, which resulted in an average of 5.84 million viewers.
Ahead of the game, the first international show in the history of College GameDay and program debut of former Alabama head coach Nick Saban averaged 1.6 million viewers, accounting for its most-watched Week 0 episode of all time. The show attained an average of 2 million viewers in its final hour and was up 41% over its last Week 0 record set in 2022.
In a thrilling championship game that spanned eight innings, the final matchup of the Little League World Series between the United States (Lake Mary, Fla.) and Chinese Taipei (Taoyuan) averaged 3.54 million viewers on ABC, according to data from Nielsen Media Research. This viewership average is up 20% from last year’s championship game of the Little League World Series, and it is the most-watched iteration of the event on the network since 2015. The game peaked with approximately 5.5 million viewers at 6:15 p.m. EST. Karl Ravech, Jessica Mendoza and Todd Frazier were situated in the broadcast booth with additional reporting from Julie Foudy.
On the preceding day, the Little League Baseball United States Championship game between Florida and Texas averaged 3.02 million viewers on ABC, the most-watched version of the event since 2015 and up 19% year-over-year. The broadcast attained a peak audience of 4.44 million viewers at 6:15 p.m. EST in a game that included several lead changes in the late innings.
