Thursday night saw a lineup of marquee college football games, which in turn saw strong competition from the NFL and an NBA doubleheader. ESPN averaged a 4.1 overnight for Stanford’s win over Oregon (9:00pm ET start), which likely will end up being ESPN’s best audience for a Thursday night game since LSU-Mississippi State in ’11. FS1 had Baylor’s win over Oklahoma last night (7:30pm), with that game drawing a 1.5 overnight. When final audience figures come in, the game likely will rank among the top 2-3 broadcasts since the net launched in August. NFL Network’s Redskins-Vikings game led all sports telecasts last night with a 5.4 overnight, which is up 17% from Colts-Jaguars in the same week last year. TNT also saw strong numbers for an NBA doubleheader on Thursday. The net averaged a 2.0 overnight for Clippers-Heat and Lakers-Rockets (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor).
A LEAGUE OF HIS OWN: In Oklahoma City, Mel Bracht writes FS1's Petros Papadakis, who has "concentrated on West Coast games in recent years, clearly was out of his league" when calling Oklahoma-Baylor. He "kept talking about how OU was the league's most physical team," which means he "apparently hadn't seen the tape of the OU-Texas game." His "shrill voice also was annoying in a crowded three-man booth, often repeating the comments" of fellow FS1 analyst Joel Klatt (
OKLAHOMAN, 11/8). Oklahoma City-based KOCO-ABC sports reporter
Carson Cunningham wrote on his Twitter feed, "Not sure we need 2 analysts. I much prefer Joel Klatt than Petros Papadakis, too." Syndicated columnist
Norman Chad wrote, "I've activated the closed captioning function on my TV so I can follow the OU-Baylor game. It also helps with Petros Papadakis."
