- ESPN 15-Hour Saturday Average Outdraws Competition’s Most-Viewed Game
- ESPN & ABC Televise Weekend’s Four Most-Viewed Games
- ESPN Wins Night Among Viewers and Key Demographics
- ESPN, ESPN2 & ESPNU Each Top Competition for Saturday
- Millions Go to ESPN Mobile Offerings
- Birmingham Top Market
ESPN led all networks covering college football in week two of the season, giving the network its most-viewed Saturday ever during the regular-season (August to December). ESPN averaged 3,840,000 viewers in the 24-hour day-part (beginning at 6 a.m. ET), surpassing the previous high of 3,314,000 viewers set on September 12, 2009.
ESPN’s nearly 15 hours of college football studio and game content on Saturday – beginning at 9 a.m. ET with the three-hour College GameDay Built by The Home Depot to the last whistle of Notre Dame at Michigan at 11:45 p.m. – averaged 5,557,000 viewers and a 3.5 US rating.
ESPN televised the three most-viewed games of the day; ABC’s Saturday afternoon matchup was the fourth most-viewed telecast on Saturday.
- ESPN’s prime-time telecast of No. 17 Michigan defeating No. 14 Notre Dame 41-30 on Saturday, Sept. 7, was the weekend’s most-viewed non-NFL sporting event, averaging 8,653,000 viewers and a 5.3 US rating. The telecast was also the night’s most-viewed program across all cable and broadcast networks among total viewers and key male and adult demographics (18-34, 18-49 and 25-54). In addition, Notre Dame at Michigan delivered an average viewership that is 152 percent higher than the competition’s most-viewed college football game on Saturday.
- No. 11 Georgia beating No. 6 South Carolina 41-30 averaged 7,045,000 viewers and a 4.3 US rating on ESPN
- Miami’s 21-16 victory over No. 12 Florida on ESPN averaged 4,596,000 viewers and a 3.1 US rating.
- ABC averaged 4,150,000 viewers and a 2.7 US rating for the split regional telecast of No. 2 Oregon defeating Virginia 59-10 and No. 3 Ohio State over San Diego State 42-7.
Saturday Game Averages Tops All Networks
The average audience for the three games that ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU each televised on Saturday, Sept. 7, was larger than any competing cable network televising college football that day. ESPN’s three games averaged 6,805,000 viewers, while ESPN2’s three telecasts averaged 920,000 viewers and ESPNU’s 542,000 viewers.
ESPN Digital Platforms Continue to Post Growth
ESPN Digital Media’s college football content across all platforms – ESPN.com, the ESPN Mobile Web college football section, ESPN’s ScoreCenter app, WatchESPN/ESPN3 and the ESPN College Football app – continues to demonstrate significant growth, generating an average audience of 270,000 for Saturday, marking an increase of 9 percent over last season. Highlights:
- This weekend’s college football games on WatchESPN totaled 86,700,000 live minutes viewed, marking a 51 percent increase over 2012.
- On Saturday, more than 6,500,000 fans accessed the ScoreCenter app with an average minute audience of 104,000 (up 72 percent over 2012). ESPN’s College Football app reached nearly 1,300,000 unique visitors with an average minute audience of more than 11,700 (up 45 percent over 2012).
- ESPN and ABC college football game telecasts accounted for 41 percent of the overall television-related tweets on Twitter. Notre Dame at Michigan on ESPN drew 153,000 unique Tweeters and a total of 287,000 tweets, making it the most social college football game of 2013 behind Georgia at Clemson on ABC in week one.
Birmingham leading the markets
For the second straight week, Birmingham was the highest-rated metered market for ESPN game telecasts, averaging an 18.0 for Saturday’s three matchups. Greenville, S.C., was second with a 13.8 rating followed by Jacksonville (12.5), Atlanta (11.2), Detroit (10.1), Tampa-St. Pete (9.3), Orlando (9.1), Columbus (8.9), Knoxville (8.3) and Fort Myers (8.3).
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