College Football Ratings Surge Behind SEC's Opening, Still Down vs. Last Year
All it took was the return fo the Southeastern Conference to bump college football television ratings back up. But they're still not where they once stood.
In week three of the return of college football, only two games drew a viewership north of two million fans. This past week, six games drew at least two million fans.
Mississippi State's upset of No. 6 LSU was the biggest winner of the week. Its 2.5 rating, drawing 4.44-million fans, was not only the biggest game of the week, it's the biggest drawing game of the season thus far. That said, the game was still down 5-percent from the same mid-afternoon time slot game in week four last season.
The other four games that drew ratings of over 1.0 and at least two million fans include Florida State vs. Miami (2.95-million, 7:30 p.m ABC), Texas vs. Texas Tech (2.72-million, 3:30 p.m. FOX), Kansas State vs. Oklahoma (2.68-million, Noon Fox), Ole Miss vs. Florida (2.67-million, Noon ESPN) and Alabama vs. Missouri (2.09-million, 7 p.m. ESPN).
On average, all of those top six games were down an average of 11.2-percent from last year with the only game of the six with an increased rating from the prior year being the Alabama game.
As has been standard, the NFL is also down a similar single-digit figure as college football. However at least three separate games on Sunday had viewership over 15-million, with the FOX afternoon game of the week pulling in over 22-million.
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