Texas pulled off an improbable comeback win against Ohio State on ABC this past Saturday, and it absolutely blew up the viewership charts, averaging a massive 14.0 million fans and peaking at 16.4 million. Let that sink in for a second: this wasn’t just a big game, it was the most-watched regular-season college football game on ESPN networks since way back in 2016 when Michigan and Ohio State went at it. This Week 2 slugfest also became the most-watched Week 2 college football game ever, and the top primetime regular-season game since Notre Dame and USC squared off in 2012. Wild stuff, right?
Record-Breaking Viewership, But What Happened to Last Year’s Numbers?
While Ohio State-Texas was lighting up primetime, another huge matchup saw Michigan take down Oklahoma on Fox’s Big Noon Saturday, drawing 8.2 million viewers and hitting an 11.1 million peak. That Michigan game actually saw a 31% bump from last year’s Big Noon Saturday average, which is pretty solid! But here’s where it gets interesting, and honestly, a little puzzling: despite all those records for the Ohio State-Texas game, its viewership was actually *down* from last year’s matchup. A year ago, that same game pulled in 16.6 million viewers on Big Noon Saturday. This year, on ABC in primetime, it was 14.0 million. That’s a noticeable drop, and Fox President of Insights and Analytics Michael Mulvihill even called it out on X.
It wasn’t just Ohio State-Texas, either. Michigan-Oklahoma, which was on ABC primetime last year, went from 9.7 million viewers to 8.2 million this year when it moved to Fox’s Noon slot. So both high-profile games saw a dip after essentially switching networks and time slots. Is it the time of day? Is primetime losing its magic? Awful Announcing’s Ben Koo brought up the key question: what’s going on with these numbers?
The Great Viewership Mystery: Time Slot or Something Else?
It’s tempting to blame the time slots, but it’s not that simple. Ohio State-Texas was a Week 1 game last year and Week 2 this year, so it’s not a perfect comparison. Plus, Michigan was ranked in 2025 but not against Oklahoma in 2026, though interest was probably still sky-high after their Hail Mary win the week before. All these moving parts make it tough to pinpoint a single reason for the year-over-year declines.
The more likely answer? Fans will show up for top-tier games, no matter when they kick off. Maybe a middle section of this year’s Ohio State-Texas game looking like a blowout dampened things, or perhaps the pregame hype wasn’t as intense as last year when both shows were all-in. It’s also worth noting that Nielsen made some big methodological changes, now directly comparing “Big Data against Big Data,” which is different from last season. Nielsen even added new co-viewing metrics and other refinements this September.
So, while Fox’s combined Big Noon matchups (Ohio State vs. Texas and Oklahoma vs. Michigan) did squeak out a small win with 24.8 million total viewers over ABC’s 23.7 million, it’s not a definitive win when you factor in all the variables. What’s really clear is that the kick-off time probably doesn’t matter as much as we think. This early season viewership puzzle just shows how much the networks are battling for our eyeballs.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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