Final Ratings: ABC Up With LSU-Oregon Matchup; Baltimore GP Scores For Versus

ABC's LSU-Oregon matchup last Saturday night led all sports telecasts for the week ending Sept. 4 with 7.8 million viewers. The game was the sixth most-viewed primetime telecast on all of TV for the week. Compared to LSU-North Carolina in the same time slot last year, the LSU-Oregon viewership was up 80%. ESPN's Boise State-Georgia matchup on Saturday topped all sports telecasts on cable TV last week with 3.7 million viewers, up 2% from the comparable TCU-Oregon State game last year. NBC finished with 3.2 million viewers for its live coverage of the South Florida-Notre Dame game, which featured multiple rain delays. That figure is down slightly from 3.3 million viewers for Purdue-Notre Dame last year (Austin Karp, THE DAILY).

DRIVING RATINGS: Versus averaged 591,000 viewers for Sunday’s inaugural Izod IndyCar Series Baltimore Grand Prix from 2:44-5:01pm ET. The audience marks the second-highest IndyCar viewership on Versus in the net’s three season of carrying races. Only the July 24 race from Edmonton has averaged more viewers (642,000) (Karp). In Baltimore, David Zurawik noted the audience was a “far cry from the 3.5 million viewers mentioned” in the city’s press release from May ’10 when the Grand Prix deal was signed (BALTIMORESUN.com, 9/7).

BEASTS OF THE EAST: MLB Network averaged 273,000 viewers in primetime from Aug. 30 through Sept. 5, marking the net’s most-viewed seven-day primetime period ever. The net averaged 106,000 viewers among adults 18-49. The Yankees-Red Sox matchup on Aug. 30 delivered 573,000 viewers, marking the net’s top audience this season and second-best game audience ever behind Nationals P Stephen Strasburg’s debut last year. The Yankees-Red Sox game gave MLB Net its best primetime audience ever with an average of 626,000 viewers. The same matchup on Sept. 1 also helped deliver the net’s third-best primetime audience yet with 573,000 viewers (THE DAILY)….The Sept. 1 Yankees-Red Sox game on YES Network averaged a 7.7 local rating and 733,000 viewers in N.Y., marking the net’s highest-rated and most-viewed Yankees game since the same matchup delivered a 10.0 rating and 1.085 million viewers on April 4 last season (YES Network).

NOTES: FS Midwest is averaging a 9.0 local rating in St. Louis for Cardinals games to date, down 5% from the same point last season. However, the rating remains the “second-highest for local telecasts in the major leagues, trailing only” the Phillies. The Cardinals are also “on pace for the third-best rating in the 16 seasons they’ve had a significant number of games on cable/satellite TV” (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 9/9)….WEEI-AM in Boston has seen a “steep decline from its perch ever since upstart rival 98.5 The Sports Hub debuted two years ago.” In October ’09, WEEI-AM averaged an 8.4 rating among male listeners 25-54, tops in the market, compared to a 5.9 rating for The Sports Hub. In August ’11, The Sports Hub was on top with an 8.4 rating, compared to a 5.0 rating for WEEI-AM, which ranked fifth in the market (BOSTON HERALD, 9/8).

The chart below lists final Nielsen ratings from recent sports telecasts. All ratings listed are U.S. ratings. Figures for Monday coverage of the final round of the PGA Tour Deutsche Bank Championship on NBC and coverage of the U.S. Open on CBS were not available at presstime.

NOTES: * = Game had a 93-minute weather delay beginning at 5:35pm ET. A second weather delay forced the telecast to finish on Versus from 9:19-9:41pm.