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Saturday’s much-hyped Georgia-Texas matchup delivered the most-watched game of the college football season, and continued ABC’s dominance in TV ratings, thanks to the SEC’s expansion and the network’s new deal with the conference.
Final viewership numbers showed 13.2 million people tuned in to ABC for Georgia’s 30–15 upset in Austin on Saturday night, more than any other matchup so far this fall. And before that in the afternoon, Tennessee’s 24–17 win over Alabama drew 10.8 million viewers on the same network, good for the third-most-watched contest of the season.
Texas and Oklahoma joined the SEC this summer, and Disney took over the conference’s game of the week from CBS. That combination has led to the SEC on ABC drawing the three highest TV audiences through eight weeks, and eight of the top 10.
For now, NBC and Fox are each cracking the top five, too:
- 13.2 million: Georgia-Texas, ABC
- 12 million: Georgia-Alabama, ABC
- 10.8 million: Alabama-Tennessee, ABC
- 10.2 million: Ohio State–Oregon, NBC
- 9.35 million: Texas-Michigan, Fox
No Going Back for CBS
Last year, SEC on CBS games accounted for 12 of the 50 most-watched college football broadcasts of the regular season (including conference championships), with six drawing seven million viewers or more. So far this season, the highest audience for CBS is 6.3 million for Michigan’s 27–24 victory over USC.
CBS was previously paying roughly $50 million annually for the SEC’s game of the week. Disney now pays $300 million for that contract, pushing the company’s total annual payment for the conference’s exclusive rights to more than $700 million.
