CBS earned a 10.0 overnight Nielsen rating for Satuday's Alabama-Georgia SEC Championship, tying it with ABC's Notre Dame-USC telecast on Nov. 24 as the best college football overnight this season. The 10.0 overnight is up 35% from a 7.4 overnight for LSU's win over Georgia in last year's game, and up 59% from a 6.3 for Auburn-South Carolina in '10 (Austin Karp, THE DAILY). USA TODAY's Michael Hiestand notes Alabama's comeback and Georgia's "nearly successful bid for a last-second touchdown also helped propel ratings to peak at 13.3% for the last half-hour of coverage" (USA TODAY, 12/3). In Atlanta, Michael Cunningham wrote, "Good job by CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson for pointedly asking Nick Saban at halftime why he didn't call timeout to save time to try for a touchdown at the end of the first half." Saban "acknowledged he messed up" (ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 12/2).
| SEC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME OVERNIGHT TREND ON CBS |
| YEAR | START (ET) | MATCHUP | RATING |
| '12 | 4:00pm | Alabama-Georgia | 10.0 |
| '11 | 4:00pm | LSU-Georgia | 7.4 |
| '10 | 4:00pm | Auburn-South Carolina | 6.3 |
| '09 | 4:00pm | Alabama-Florida | 11.8 |
| '08 | 4:00pm | Florida-Alabama | 10.4 |
| '07 | 4:00pm | LSU-Tennessee | 6.0 |
| '06 | 6:00pm | Florida-Arkansas | 4.7 |
| | | | |
LAW OF LARGE NUMBERS: SI.com's Stewart Mandel wrote the Notre Dame-Alabama BCS National Championship is the "Nielsen equivalent of winning the lottery." The game could "unquestionably be the highest-rated title game since USC-Texas." The only thing "we can be certain about with Notre Dame-Alabama [is] that a whole lot of people are going to watch it" (SI.com, 12/2). In Chicago, Brian Hamilton writes Notre Dame-Alabama "indeed gives most of [the] nation what it wants" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 12/3).
HEART OF GOLD: AD AGE's Michael McCarthy notes NBC "pays Notre Dame an estimated $15 million a year for its regular-season" TV rights package. NBC Sports Group Exec VP/Sales & Marketing Seth Winter said NBC "absolutely" wants to renew its contract well before it expires after the '15 season. McCarthy: "Look for Notre Dame to jack up NBC's rights fees, as it has in the past." Winter said that the net's "Notre Dame ad revenue rose 40% this year." NBC also did "plenty of business in the scatter market as the unbeaten Irish piled up wins" and the net's creative team "did its part by touting the school's 'undefeated' record and BCS title chase." Winter said that Notre Dame is a "unique" property because it grabs "upscale viewers across the U.S." Other conferences "such as the SEC and Midwest-based Big Ten are still mostly regional in TV appeal, but Notre Dame operates outside a conference" (ADAGE.com, 12/3).
TITLE GAME ROUNDUP: Fox earned a 3.3 for the second Pac-12 Championship game on Friday night, which saw Stanford defeat UCLA. That figure is up slightly from the inaugural event last year, which earned a 3.2 overnight for the Oregon-UCLA matchup. Meanwhile, Fox earned a 2.5 overnight on Saturday night for Wisconsin's blowout of Nebraska in the Big Ten Championship, down 42% from a 4.3 for the inaugural event last year, which saw Wisconsin defeat Michigan State. Also on Saturday night, ESPN earned a 1.4 overnight for the Florida State-Georgia Tech ACC Championship, down 18% from last year's Clemson-Virginia Tech matchup (Karp).
