SKEDBALL: Weekend Sports Ratings Bowl

• Tweet
• Email

• Tweet
• Email

Over the weekend football continued to dominate the afternoon sports daypart.  On Saturday, college football filled the air, but only one game broke out: Stanford upsetting Oregon in prime time on ABC.  The other big upset (Kansas State at Baylor) aired opposite it on ESPN, but the game never really got off the ground since the audience assumed Baylor would be crushed by then top-ranked Kansas State.  Any viewing to that game would have been packed into the final half hour or quarter hour.

Sunday Ratings:  This week CBS had the double-header on Sunday, with a very strong performance at 1:00 pm (11.7 rating and 24 share for the combination of four regional games) and an acceptable 14.6 rating / 25 share at 4:30 for a combination of two games.  NBC’s Sunday night football (12.2 rating / 19 share) ranked behind the 4:30 CBS game in terms of household rating, and just barely above the 1:00 CBS game.

FOX’s single game averaged an okay 10.6 rating and 21 share (a combination of four 1:00 pm games and one 4:00 pm game).  Most of the country (25 of 56 metered markets in 29% of the US) received the solid Green Bay-Detroit game, but a very large chunk of the country (13 markets in 21% of the US) stumbled to only a 5.6 rating and 11 share for Saints at Raiders.  While the Saints game as always did amazingly well in New Orleans (see market summary below), the Raiders aren’t much of a draw even in the Bay Area and certainly not in the almost dozen other markets given that game.  It’s puzzling why more of the country wasn’t offered Eagles at Redskins, given the interest in rookie quarterback RG3, but FOX (like CBS) does not have free reign in scheduling games (given the myriad rules and home-market definitions by the NFL).

Looking at local ratings in home markets, a 12.6 rating and 29 share for USC-UCLA is actually pretty good for Los Angeles, which like Miami has some of the lowest broadcast ratings of any market.  There was a true home effect in the smaller Midwestern markets, particularly Columbus, Ohio, which gave the 3:30 ABC game near-NFL sized ratings.  Honorable mention goes to Portland for turning out in large numbers to see their Ducks blow their undefeated season.

The NFL markets with the most loyal fans this Sunday were found in Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Milwaukee (Green Bay), and Boston — all markets which exceeded a 40 rating for their team’s game.  Honorable mention goes to Baltimore and Denver, which came close to that threshold.