Last Saturday’s matchup between No. 1 Texas and No. 3 Ohio State may not have lived up to its immense hype, but it definitely exceeded ratings expectations.
The Buckeyes’ 14-7 win over the Longhorns garnered more viewers than any Week 1 game in college football history, according to Fox Sports.
The game averaged 16.6 million viewers, peaking at 18.6 million at the start of the fourth quarter.
Additionally, the matchup was the third-most-watched regular-season game ever broadcast on Fox, behind only the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry clashes of 2022 and 2023.
Fox wasn’t the only network to break records from Texas-Ohio State. Prior to kickoff, ESPN’s “College Football Gameday” experienced its highest viewership ever in longtime analyst Lee Corso’s farewell show, as more than 5 million people tuned in for the last 15 minutes of the broadcast, according to ESPN.
Other notable college football ratings feats
- Highest-viewed game of all time: 2006 Rose Bowl (Texas vs. USC), 35.6 million viewers
- Highest-viewed game of the 2024 season: SEC championship (Texas vs. Georgia), 16.6 million viewers
- Highest-viewed regular-season game of all time: Michigan vs. Ohio State in 2023, 19.1 million viewers
- BYU vs. Utah 2024 viewership: 2.07 million viewers
- Utah’s 2022 Rose Bowl viewership: 16.6 million viewers
- BYU’s 2024 Alamo Bowl viewership: 8.0 million viewers