The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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INSIDE MICHIGAN ATHLETICS Michigan Is Better Served Appearing On ESPN/ABC Less than 24 hours after Michigan opened the season at Utah Sept. 3, FOX Sports 1 sent out a release noting the Wolverines-Utes matchup had set a station record for viewership, reaching 2,868,000 viewers on the opening night of college football. However, FOX Sports 1, which has a reported total reach of 84,836,000 households, would prove by the end of the weekend that it cannot compare to the audience con- sistently attracted by sports-cable giant ESPN. ESPN's broadcast of rivals North Carolina and South Carolina, also on Sept. 3, was seen by 3,601,000 viewers while its Labor Day broadcast of No. 1 Ohio State at Virginia Tech (albeit the only college game of the day) boasted 10,585,000 viewers. According to its numbers, ESPN is available in 94,396,000 households, and 11.2 per- cent of those homes tuned into the OSU-Virginia Tech contest compared to 3.3 percent of the total FOX Sports 1-abled households watching Michigan play Utah. College football, though, is simply playing in a different league than the NFL, which drew 29,824,500 viewers to its opening-night matchup Sept. 10 of New England versus Pittsburgh. A year ago, Michigan averaged 3,776,250 viewers in eight nationally televised broad- casts between ESPN, ESPN2, ABC and NBC networks, including a high of 8,230,000 for the Ohio State game and a low of 1,290,00 against Appalachian State. Interestingly, the second-biggest TV draw was not Notre Dame (4,630,000) or Michi- gan State (3,800,00), but when the Maize and Blue clashed with Minnesota for the Little Brown Jug (5,490,000 viewers). TOP TV VIEWERSHIP FOR COLLEGE FOOTBALL SEPT. 3-12^ Date Matchup (Network) Viewers Sept. 7 Ohio State at Virginia Tech* (ESPN) 10,585,000 Sept. 5 Wisconsin vs. Alabama* (ABC) 7,967,000 Sept. 12 Oregon at Michigan State* (ABC) 7,898,000 Sept. 5 Louisville vs. Auburn (CBS) 4,381,000 Sept. 12 Oklahoma at Tennessee* (ESPN) 4,129,000 Sept. 5 Texas at Notre Dame* (NBC) 4,100,000 Sept. 3 N. Carolina at S. Carolina* (ESPN) 3,601,000 Sept. 5 Stanford at Northwestern (ESPN) 3,214,000 Sept. 12 LSU at Mississippi State* (ESPN) 3,120,000 Sept. 3 Michigan at Utah* (FS1) 2,868,000 Sept. 3 TCU at Minnesota* (ESPN) 2,620,000 Sept. 5 Arizona State at Texas A&M* (ESPN) 2,471,000 Sept. 12 South Florida at Florida State (ESPN) 2,216,000 Sept. 4 Washington at Boise State* (ESPN) 2,058,000 Sept. 4 Baylor at SMU* (ESPN) 2,003,000 Sept. 5 Penn State vs. Temple (ESPN) 1,912,000 Sept. 5 Virginia at UCLA (FOX) 1,853,500 Ratings are unavailable for the SEC Network, Big Ten Network, CBS Sports Network and Pac-12 Network be- cause they are not part of the Nielsen rating system; * Games played at 6 p.m. local time or later (night game); ^ Nationally televised games