- Increased Audience Further Cements The Game as Most-Watched Contest of the Season Across All Networks
Michigan-Ohio State’s total live audience (TV + digital) viewership has surpassed 17 million viewers, which now includes 194,000 more television viewers in Nielsen’s final report compared to Sunday’s fast nationals report. The additional viewership only further cements the Big Ten matchup as the most-watched game of the season across all networks.
The Wolverines-Buckeyes (noon ET on ABC) final total live audience is 17,120,000 viewers, which includes an ESPN college football regular season record-breaking streaming average audience (279,000 viewers). ABC’s TV audience (16,841,000 viewers) surpassed the network’s Notre Dame-Texas game from opening weekend (Sept. 4 at 7:30 p.m.) as the most-watched game across all networks. Season-to-date, ABC has televised four of the five most-watched college football games across all networks:
Most-Viewed College Football Games This Season on TV
| Rank | TV Viewership | Game | Date | Network |
| 1 | 16,841,000 | Michigan at Ohio State | Nov. 26, 2016 | ABC |
| 2 | 10,945,000 | Notre Dame at Texas | Sept. 4, 2016 | ABC |
| 3 | 10,385,000 | Alabama at LSU | Nov. 5, 2016 | CBS |
| 4 | 9,294,000 | Louisville at Clemson | Oct. 1, 2016 | ABC |
| 5 | 8,964,000 | Ohio State at Wisconsin | Oct. 15, 2016 | ABC |
Additional Michigan-Ohio State Viewership Superlatives:
- Most-watched college football regular season noon ET kickoff across all networks on record*
- ABC’s second most-viewed game dating back to 1991 (out of 791 game windows)
- Top 5 most-watched regular season game across all networks – which includes conference championship games – on record*
- ESPN’s most-streamed regular season game ever, including surpassing one million unique users and 69 million minutes watched
- Most social college football event this season with 3,300,000 million uniques and 7,700,000 million total interactions
- College GameDay Presented by the Home Depot, live from Ohio State, was the show’s most-watched episode ever
These details and more were included as part of a press release on Sunday, Nov. 27, which can be viewed here.
Michigan-Ohio State Drives ESPN Digital Traffic on Saturday, Nov. 26
- ESPN Digital: Accessed by 33,600,000 unique visitors and an average minute audience of 689,000 vistors, up 3% and 21%, respectively, from last season’s Saturday of week 13 (November 28, 2015)
- Video Usage Soars: 12,100,000 college football video starts across ESPN.com and the ESPN app – the most for any day this season.
- ESPN’s digital Game HQ: 35,300,000 views, which includes a whopping 12,100,000 views for Michigan-Ohio State, the highest of any game this season.
.Additional ESPN’s Networks Rivalry Week Highlights:
- More Than Three Times the Consumption: In week 13 of the college football season, fans watched more than 12,535,457,000 minutes of college football action on ESPN’s Nielsen-rated television networks**, 3.2 times more than all other nationally rated television networks combined (3,957,874,000 minutes)***.
- Streaming Surpasses 3 Million Unique Viewers: For the second time ever, more than 3,000,000 unique viewers streamed ESPN college football in a single week
- ESPN’s Networks Set the Pace: ESPN’s networks aired six of the seven most-watched games across all networks, led by the Michigan-Ohio State game
- LSU at Texas A&M (Thursday, Nov. 24 at 7:30 p.m.): Total live audience of 2,821,000 viewers, ESPN’s most-watched Thursday night telecast of the season.
- ABC’s Saturday Night Football Florida at Florida State (8 p.m.): Total live audience of 6,513,000 viewers, up 35% from last year’s week 13 Saturday Night Football game (Oklahoma at Oklahoma State).
- Notre Dame at USC (3:30 p.m. ET): Total live audience of 5,723,000 viewers, up 34% from last year’s comparable time slot (regional action: UCLA at USC and North Carolina at North Carolina State)
All games were Saturday, Nov. 26 unless noted
*Records date back to 1990 for ESPN and 1996 for ABC. Competitive networks include CBS, Fox, FS1, FX, NBCSN and TBS. Data goes back as far to 1996 with CBS.
**ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and ESPN Deportes (TV only data). SEC Network, SEC Network Alternate, ESPNEWS, and Longhorn Network are not included as they are not Nielsen rated networks.
***CBS, NBC, FOX, FS1 (TV only data)
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Media contact: Derek Volner at 860-384-9986; Derek.Volner@ESPN.com and @DerekVolner
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