ESPN College Football Week 4: Three of Four Most-Watched Games; WatchESPN Continues Season of Growth

College FootballFootball

ESPN College Football Week 4: Three of Four Most-Watched Games; WatchESPN Continues Season of Growth

  • ESPN/ABC Televised Most-Watched Primetime Game for Fourth Time this Season
  • WatchESPN Reached More People than Any Week of the 2014 Regular Season

After setting the pace in the first three weeks of the college football season, ESPN continued the momentum into the final weekend of September. ESPN/ABC televised three of the four most-watched games of week 4, including the most-watched primetime game. Additionally, for the fourth consecutive week, more people streamed live on WatchESPN than in any other regular-season college football week of the 2014 season.

Week 4 Highlights:

  • Western Michigan at No. 1 Ohio State and Virginia Tech at East Carolina, regionalized, on ABC (3:30 p.m. ET) set the pace, averaging 3,721,000 viewers, a 42% increase compared to 2014’s comparable window – Texas A&M at SMU and Utah at Michigan (2,613,000 viewers).
  • ESPN and WatchESPN’s most-watched, most-streamed game was No. 8 LSU at Syracuse (noon) which garnered 3,204,000 television viewers and, on WatchESPN, an average minute audience of 72,000 people and 359,000 unique viewers.
  • The Tigers-Orange stream on WatchESPN resulted in a 136% and 115% increase, respectively, to 2014’s comparable window – Georgia Tech at Virginia Tech –in average minute audience (30,000 people) and unique viewers (167,000 unique viewers). On ESPN, the game resulted in a 2% increase in television viewership (3,144,000 people) to the same 2014 window.
  • ESPN/ABC, which has televised the most-watched primetime game each week of the 2015 season, continued the trend when the overtime-thriller between No. 14 Texas A&M and Arkansas on ESPN (7:15 p.m.) earned 3,112,000 viewers.
  • Throughout all of week 4, college football on WatchESPN was viewed on 1,700,000 unique devices that streamed 141,100,000 live minutes, a 39% and 44% increase, respectively, compared to 2014’s week 4.

Please note: No. 22 BYU at Michigan (noon on ABC) television viewership number is not available until Thu, Oct. 1, and thus not accounted for in this release. All games referenced were on Sat, Sept. 26, and comparable year-over-year games were Sat, Sept. 20, 2014.

-30-

Media contact: Derek Volner at 860-384-9986; [email protected] and @DerekVolner

 

Derek Volner

I currently lead ESPN’s NFL Communications, including Monday Night Football, NFL Draft and studio programming. Previously, I did the same for ESPN’s vast college football portfolio. I have been with ESPN since 2013.
Back to top button