Want more from Front Office Sports
in your search results?
ESPN’s Saturday night viewership for Texas vs. Alabama narrowly edged out Deion Sanders’ Colorado home debut against Nebraska on Fox Sports.
Texas-Alabama drew 8.8 million viewers on ESPN platforms, including 799,000 viewers that tuned into “The Pat McAfee Show” alternate broadcast on ESPN2. It was the most-watched alt-cast for McAfee, whose show debuted in 2019 with DAZN before he joined ESPN in May on a multiyear deal that pays him a reported $85 million.
Texas-Alabama peaked at 10.7 million viewers, making it ESPN’s most-watched regular-season college football game since 2015 and the most-watched college football game of the week across all networks.
Colorado’s Saturday noon ET win over Nebraska scored 8.73 million viewers on Fox, making it the second-most-watched game of the week. When not counting “The Pat McAfee Show” viewers on ESPN2, Nebraska-Colorado beat the 7.9 million viewers that watched ESPN’s main broadcast of Texas-Alabama.
Fox’s Nebraska-Colorado game is rated as the network’s most-watched Pac-12 regular-season game ever and the 10th most-watched college football game ever on Fox. It was also the second-most-streamed CFB game in Fox Sports history.
Colorado’s season-opening road win over TCU on Fox drew 7.62 million viewers, ranking as the network’s most-watched Week 1 Big Noon Saturday game ever.
The Coach Prime effect will see both ESPN’s “College GameDay” pregame show and Fox’s “Big Noon Kickoff” pregame show air from Boulder for Colorado’s Week 3 game against Colorado State, which will air on ESPN. It will mark the first time Fox Sports has ever done its “Big Noon Kickoff” from the site of a game the network isn’t broadcasting, and it will mark the first appearance for “College GameDay” at Folsom Field since 1996.
Download the FOS App
The business of sports, in your pocket.
Scan the QR code to get the app now.
