Michigan-Notre Dame Saturday night marked NBC's best telecast of the Irish since an '05 matchup with USCGETTY IMAGES
NBC was a winner for Week 1 of college football with its lone game, while ESPN and FS1's audiences were lower compared to the opening weekend last year. NBC saw a total audience delivery of 7.18 million viewers for Michigan-Notre Dame (7.09 million on TV alone), marking the best Notre Dame game on the net since USC-Notre Dame drew 10.07 million viewers in October '05. Saturday's matchup was NBC’s best primetime Notre Dame game yet and best season opener for the Irish in 24 years. NBC also won the night on Saturday. On NBC digital, Michigan-Notre Dame was the platform’s most-streamed Notre Dame game yet with an average minute audience of 88,500 viewers. Meanwhile, ESPN on Saturday saw an 18% decline for its four games (1.37 million average viewers vs. 1.66 million). Ole Miss-Texas Tech led the way with 1.93 million viewers. On ABC, Oregon State-Ohio State in the early window saw a 49% bump compared to Akron-Penn State last year, even with a weather delay. But ABC’s midday game, Washington-Auburn (5.25 million viewers), was down 31% compared to Michigan-Florida last year. In primetime, Louisville-Alabama was down 63% from Florida State-Alabama last year. On Sunday night, ABC fared better with Miami-LSU, which was up 41% compared to West Virginia-Virginia Tech in '17. Fox’ schedule was a bit different from '17. The net had FAU-Oklahoma in the early afternoon window, but there was no comp for '17. In the midday window, North Carolina-Cal averaged 930,000 viewers, down 16% from UTEP-Oklahoma last year. Fox also saw its primetime game, Akron-Nebraska, canceled on Saturday due to inclement weather. On FS1, Texas-Maryland averaged 1.27 million viewers Saturday, down 38% from the same match last year (Tom Herman's first game as UT coach). Also, FS1 and ESPN saw their Thursday night openers down 12% and 66%, respectively.
