Big-name schools, a high-scoring game and a thrilling double-OT finish helped deliver ESPN/ABC’s best Week 1 college football audience on record last weekend. The experiment to put football in ABC’s Sunday night primetime window for the first time paid off, as Notre Dame-Texas delivered 10.95 million viewers. That topped the net’s Week 1 record set last year on ESPN, when the Labor Day primetime matchup of Ohio State-Virginia Tech drew 10.59 million viewers. The previous record for an ABC Week 1 game was Miami-Florida State in ’05 on Labor Day with 9.65 million viewers. Notre Dame-Texas easily topped the entertainment programming ABC aired on the same Sunday night last year. ESPN’s Labor Day primetime game this year, Ole Miss-Florida State, delivered 8.35 million viewers, marking the ninth-best Week 1 CFB audience for ESPN/ABC. Combined with digital viewership on WatchESPN, the company claims 11.14 million viewers watched Notre Dame-Texas, compared to 8.59 million viewers for Ole Miss-FSU. However, Ole Miss-FSU had the bigger digital-only audience with 854,000 unique viewers, compared to 786,000 for Notre Dame-Texas. Across all Week 1 CFB games, ESPN/ABC claims 81.2 million viewers were reached via TV and streaming platforms.
BEST OF THE REST: CBS drew 3.12 million viewers for its 3:30pm ET broadcast of UCLA-Texas A&M. The net drew 4.0 million viewers last year for the comparable Auburn-Louisville game. FS1’s top game was Kansas State-Stanford in the 9:00pm window Friday night, as 1.36 million viewers tuned in. The net last year in Week 1 had its best CFB audience on record, as coach Jim Harbaugh’s debut with Michigan against Utah drew 2.87 million viewers on a Thursday night.
PEPPER SPRAYED: The first weekend of college football generated $72.7M in advertising across 11 TV networks, according to an analysis of iSpot.tv data. There were 565 different brands producing 990 unique ads and 8,761 total airings. Dr Pepper had the most spots running its two commercials a total of 203 times, and Nissan's seven spots ran 74 times, giving the brand a weekend-best $1.86M in estimated spending. AT&T's "In Control' spot, touting its Mobile Share Advantage plans, generated $1.5M in spend.
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TOP-SPENDING BRANDS DURING WEEK 1 OF CFB TELECASTS
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BRAND
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AIRINGS (NUMBER OF SPOTS)
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ESTIMATED AD SPEND
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Nissan*
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74 (7)
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$1,857,539
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AT&T Wireless*
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100 (3)
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$1,624,355
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Dr Pepper*
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203 (2)
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$1,487,244
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DirecTV*
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38 (3)
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$1,475,107
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Chevrolet
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30 (4)
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$1,410,193
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Verizon
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74 (4)
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$1,369,311
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Capital One*
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62 (4)
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$1,354,077
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Geico
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143 (10)
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$1,344,137
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Ford*
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46 (6)
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$1,340,692
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Chick-fil-A*
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87 (4)
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$1,334,168
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Northwestern Mutual*
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45 (4)
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$1,234,872
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Allstate*
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154 (4)
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$1,209,497
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Buick*
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49 (3)
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$1,079,133
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NOTE: * = CFP sponsor.
