ABC earned a 7.9 final rating and 13.25 million viewers Saturday for Florida State’s 31-27 win over Notre Dame, making it the most-viewed college football game of the ’14 season. Saturday’s contest also had the largest audience for a regular-season game on an ESPN platform since No. 1-ranked Notre Dame’s win over USC drew more than 16 million viewers in ’12. Additionally, Notre Dame-FSU garnered average minute audience, unique viewers and total minutes audience records for WatchESPN (Josh Carpenter, Staff Writer).
FIRST RULE OF FIGHT CLUB: Saturday's Gennady Golovkin-Marco Antonio Rubio middleweight fight at StubHub Center in L.A. drew 1.3 million viewers on HBO, making it the "second-highest premium cable boxing event" of '14. The event also "drew 9,323 in live attendance, a sellout and a record for boxing at the venue" (INSIDESOCAL.com, 10/21). Only the Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.-Bryan Vera bout on HBO in March "drew more viewers" than Golovkin-Rubio with 1.39 million. Golovkin-Rubio "peaked at 1.323 million viewers, a healthy figure, especially considering the fight was up against" Notre Dame-FSU (ESPN.com, 10/21).
NOTES: ESPN's telecast Saturday of Kansas State-Oklahoma drew a 19.9 local rating in Oklahoma City, up 14% from last year's OU-KSU game, which aired on FS1 (OKLAHOMAN, 10/22)....The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Geico 500 at Talladega Superspeedway earned a 2.7 final rating and 4.3 million viewers on ESPN, down from a 3.1 rating and 4.9 million viewers in ’13….The NFL Cardinals have averaged a 25.7 local rating through six games, up 30% over the same period last year…PBR’s inaugural Monster Energy Bulls On The Beach event garnered a 1.1 final rating and 1.7 million viewers Sunday afternoon on CBS (Carpenter).
The chart below lists final ratings for recent sports telecasts.
| TELECAST |
DATE
|
NET
|
TIME (ET)
|
RATING
|
VIEWERS
(000)
|
| NFL: Giants-Cowboys (92%) |
10/19
|
Fox
|
4:25-7:45pm
|
15.6
|
26,976
|
| "Sunday Night Football": 49ers-Broncos |
10/19
|
NBC
|
8:31-11:23pm
|
13.8
|
23,792
|
| "Thursday Night Football": Jets-Patriots |
10/16
|
CBS
|
8:26-11:29pm
|
10.1
|
16,094
|
| NFL: (singleheader) |
10/19
|
CBS
|
1:00-4:05pm
|
9.2
|
15,350
|
| NFL: (regional) |
10/19
|
Fox
|
1:00-4:15pm
|
8.5
|
14,204
|
| College Football: Notre Dame-Florida State |
10/18
|
ABC
|
8:07pm-12:05am
|
7.9
|
13,251
|
| "Football Night in Ameica" |
10/19
|
NBC
|
7:30-8:15pm
|
5.6
|
9,327
|
| "Fox NFL Sunday" |
10/19
|
Fox
|
12:00-1:00pm
|
3.2
|
4,986
|
| College Football: Texas A&M-Alabama |
10/18
|
CBS
|
3:30-7:00pm
|
2.8
|
4,204
|
| College Football: (regional) |
10/18
|
ABC
|
3:30-7:06pm
|
2.4
|
3,802
|
| "The NFL Today" |
10/19
|
CBS
|
12:00-1:00pm
|
2.1
|
3,123
|
| PBR: Monster Energy Bulls On The Beach |
10/19
|
CBS
|
5:00-6:00pm
|
1.1
|
1,716
|
| NASCAR Camping World Truck Series: Fred's 250 (Talladega) |
10/18
|
Fox
|
1:15-3:15pm
|
1.0
|
1,402
|
| "College Football Countdown" |
10/18
|
ABC
|
3:00-3:30pm
|
0.7
|
1,039
|
| Liga MX: Club America-Monterrey |
10/18
|
Univision
|
5:55-8:03pm
|
0.5
|
858
|
| Soccer friendly: U.S.-Honduras |
10/14
|
UniMas
|
7:55-10:06pm
|
0.4
|
741
|
| Liga MX: Leon-Chivas de Guadalajara |
10/18
|
Telemundo
|
9:00-11:05pm
|
0.4
|
717
|
| Red Bull Series: Romaniacs |
10/19
|
NBC
|
4:30-6:00pm
|
0.4
|
689
|
| Lucas Oil Drag Boat Racing Series |
10/18
|
CBS
|
2:00-3:00pm
|
0.5
|
631
|
| Red Bull Series: Cape Fear |
10/18
|
NBC
|
5:00-6:00pm
|
0.4
|
578
|
| "EPL: Match of the Day" |
10/18
|
NBC
|
12:30-2:00pm
|
0.4
|
506
|
| Dew Tour: Portland |
10/18
|
NBC
|
3:00-5:00pm
|
0.3
|
446
|
| "World of X Games: ASP Surfing" |
10/19
|
ABC
|
5:00-6:00pm
|
0.3
|
427
|
| Dew Tour: Brooklyn |
10/19
|
NBC
|
2:30-4:30pm
|
0.2
|
338
|
| UCI Road Cycling World Chamionships |
10/18
|
NBC
|
2:00-3:00pm
|
0.3
|
321
|
| TELECAST |
DATE
|
NET
|
TIME (ET)
|
RATING
|
VIEWERS
(000)
|
| "Monday Night Football": 49ers-Rams |
10/13
|
ESPN
|
8:15-11:44pm
|
7.9
|
12,712
|
| ALCS: Royals-Orioles: Game 3 |
10/14
|
TBS
|
8:15-11:14pm
|
3.8
|
6,020
|
| NLCS: Giants-Cardinals: Game 4 |
10/15
|
FS1
|
8:00pm-12:04am
|
3.1
|
5,092
|
| NLCS: Giants-Cardinals: Game 5 |
10/16
|
FS1
|
8:15-11:14pm
|
3.1
|
4,891
|
| NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: Geico 500 (Talladega) |
10/19
|
ESPN
|
2:00-6:00pm
|
2.7
|
4,328
|
| ALCS: Royals-Orioles: Game 4 |
10/15
|
TBS
|
4:00-7:16pm
|
2.7
|
3,991
|
| College Football: Kansas State-Oklahoma |
10/18
|
ESPN
|
12:00-3:26pm
|
2.3
|
3,392
|
| "Thursday Night Football": Jets-Patriots |
10/16
|
NFL Net
|
8:26-11:29pm
|
1.8
|
2,902
|
| NLCS: Giants-Cardinals: Game 3 |
10/14
|
FS1
|
4:00-7:20pm
|
1.9
|
2,779
|
| College Football: Tennessee-Ole Miss |
10/18
|
ESPN
|
7:06-10:36pm
|
1.9
|
2,699
|
