One of the earliest top ten upsets in memory delivered for ESPN, as nearly five million viewers saw Florida State’s first regular season loss in two years.
Saturday’s Florida State-Georgia Tech college football game from Dublin, Ireland, averaged 4.99 million viewers on ESPN, marking the largest “week zero” audience since a primetime Miami-Florida game on ESPN in 2019 (6.09M). (Keep in mind there is typically only one major FBS game per year in “week zero.”)
Compared to last year’s Ireland game, Navy-Notre Dame on NBC, viewership increased 40% from 3.56 million. Two years ago, the Nebraska-Northwestern Ireland game drew 4.42 million on FOX.
Excluding bowl games, the Yellow Jackets’ upset win delivered the largest Noon ET college football audience on ESPN since Ohio State-Michigan State in 2016 (5.84M), though that comes with the obvious caveat that there were no other games in the window.
For the weekend, FSU-Georgia Tech placed second among sportscasts behind only the Patriots-Commanders NFL preseason game on NBC Sunday night.
In other “week zero” action, the FAMU-Norfolk State MEAC/SWAC Kickoff averaged 1.29 million in primetime on ABC — also up 40% from last year, when the game pit South Carolina State against Jackson State (922K). The Rattlers’ win delivered the largest audience for the annual preseason matchup, surpassing the previous high set in 2010.
