- ABC: Two of the Three Most-Watched Games
- ESPNU: Most-Viewed Game in More than Three Years
- WatchESPN Continues Growth; More than 1.3 Billion Minutes of College Football Content Consumed Season-to-Date
ESPN/ABC has televised the most-watched prime-time game each week of the 2015 college football season and the trend continued in week 8 when ABC’s Saturday Night Football featuring No. 1 Ohio State at Rutgers (8 p.m. ET) averaged 5,290,000 viewers. Overall, ABC televised two of the three most-watched games of the week — Saturday Night Football and regional action at 3:30 p.m. (Texas Tech at No. 17 Oklahoma and Indiana at No. 7 Michigan State), which earned 4,869,000 viewers, up 28% from last year’s same window (UCLA at California and Rutgers at Ohio State).
Additional Week 8 Highlights:
- Western Kentucky at No. 5 LSU (7 p.m.) was ESPNU’s most-viewed game in more than three years (213 games), garnering 1,247,000 viewers.
- Washington at No. 10 Stanford (10 p.m. on ESPN) earned 2,098,000 viewers, up 56% from the comparable window in 2014 (Stanford at Arizona State).
- 9 Florida State at Georgia Tech (7 p.m.) averaged 1,943,000 viewers, ESPN2’s third-most-watched game of the year and up 67% over the similar window last year (Missouri at Florida). The dramatic ending had approximately 3,403,000 viewers (10 p.m. – 10:14 p.m.).
- On WatchESPN, No. 15 Texas A&M at No. 24 Ole Miss (7 p.m.) was the most-streamed game with 50,000 average minute impressions on top of the TV audience and a total of 319,000 unique viewers accounting for 11,674,000 minutes viewed.
- Throughout all of week 8, college football on WatchESPN was viewed on 1,700,000 unique devices that streamed 133,200,000 minutes, up 67% and 55%, respectively, over 2014’s week 8.
2015 Season-to-Date
- Fans have viewed more than 1.3 billion minutes of college football content on WatchESPN, up 82% through last season’s first eight weeks.
- On ESPN, the top local markets (46 games):
| Rank | Market | Rating |
| 1. | Birmingham | 8.9 |
| 2. | New Orleans | 4.8 |
| 3. | Knoxville | 4.6 |
| 4. | Greenville | 4.4 |
| 5. | Memphis | 4.3 |
| 6. | Columbus | 4.0 |
| Jacksonville | 4.0 | |
| 8. | Oklahoma City | 3.5 |
| 9. | Atlanta | 3.3 |
| 10. | Nashville | 3.2 |
Please note: No. 6 Clemson at Miami (noon on ABC) television viewership number is not available until Thur., Oct. 29, and thus not accounted for in this release. All games referenced were on Sat., Oct. 24, and comparable year-over-year games were Sat., Oct. 18, 2014.
-30-
Media contact: Derek Volner at 860-384-9986; Derek.Volner@ESPN.com and @DerekVolner
-
-
-
-
-
