Final Ratings: SEC, Pac-12 Title Games Up, Big Ten, ACC Down; MLS Cup Off From '11

CBS’ Alabama-Georgia SEC Championship led all conference championship games last weekend with a 9.8 rating and 16.2 million viewers, up 34% and 35%, respectively, from a 7.3 rating and 12.0 million viewers for the LSU-Georgia matchup last year. Meanwhile, Fox finished with a 3.0 rating and 4.9 million viewers for the Stanford-UCLA Pac-12 Championship on Friday night, up 3% and 9%, respectively, from a 2.9 rating and 4.5 million viewers for the inaugural game last year, which featured Oregon-UCLA. Fox also earned a 2.9 rating and 5.1 million viewers for the Wisconsin-Nebraska Big Ten Championship, down 37% and 34%, respectively, from a 4.6 and 7.8 million viewers for last year's inaugural Big Ten title game, which featured Wisconsin against Michigan State. Both the Big Ten and Pac-12 title games were beat out by ABC’s Texas-Kansas State matchup on Saturday night, which drew a 3.3 rating and 5.2 million viewers. ESPN finished with a 1.2 rating and 2.0 million viewers for the Florida State-Georgia Tech ACC Championship, down 25% and 29%, respectively, from a 1.6 rating and 2.8 million viewers for the Clemson-Virginia Tech game last year.

GALAXY QUEST: The Galaxy-Dynamo MLS Cup averaged a 0.5 rating and 797,000 viewers last Saturday afternoon, down from a 0.6 rating and 1.039 million viewers for the same matchup last year, which aired late on a Sunday night. The league's finale had aired on a Sunday night since moving from ABC to ESPN in '09. Meanwhile, Telefutura averaged 485,000 viewers for the Spanish-language telecast of the game, up 58% from last year’s telecast on Galavision. The combined audience was down 5% from last year.

NOTES: ESPN's Giants-Redskins “MNF” telecast drew a 10.2 rating and 16.2 million viewers, marking the second-best viewership for a “MNF” telecast this season and third-best rating. The top “MNF” audience in ’12 remains the Oct. 1 Bears-Cowboys telecast, which drew a 10.5 rating and 16.6 million viewers….Showtime averaged 1.047 million viewers for the Miguel Cotto-Austin Trout boxing match last Saturday night from 9:00-11:44pm ET. The telecast peaked from 10:37-11:30pm for the main fight with 1.365 million viewers….MSG Network is averaging a 3.22 local rating in N.Y. for Knicks games through 13 telecasts, up 68% compared to the same period last year (1.92 rating). The Knicks' postgame show rating is also up 105%.

The charts below list final Nielsen ratings from recent sports telecasts. Figures for select telecasts on ABC were unavailable at presstime.