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One week in and college football has already scored a touchdown for Disney and ESPN. The USC vs. LSU game on Sunday saw 9.2 million viewers on ABC, becoming the network’s third best Sunday Opener as well as its most-streamed college football game on record.
The USC vs. LSU game was followed by the Notre Dame at Texas A&M game, which saw 8.2 million viewers on ABC; the Clemson vs. Georgia game, which saw 8.0 million viewers on ABC and was the most-watched Week 1 noon game on record; the Miami at Florida game, which saw 6.7 million viewers on ABC; the North Dakota State at Colorado game, which saw 4.8 million viewers on ESPN; and the Boston College at Florida State game, which saw 4.4 million viewers on ESPN.
The ESPN networks that aired college football — ABC, ESPN and ESPNU — averaged 3.1 million viewers in Week 1, an increase of 44% compared to 2023. This marked the largest audience for Kickoff Week across ESPN platforms since 2016. Additionally, this is first time since Week 1 in 2016 that ESPN platforms had six games in one weekend all surpass 4.0 million viewers.
More specifically, ABC had its most-watched Kickoff Week since 2016 as well as its second most-watched week on record. The network saw an 83% year-over-year increase in viewership.
At the same time, Week 1 viewership for ESPN was up 23% year-over-year. Aug. 31 was also the most-viewed day of college football ever on ESPN+.
Even “College GameDay” scored a boost. ESPN’s pre-game show brought in 2.5 million viewers during its debut and 3.2 million viewers in its final hour, delivering one of its most-watched regular season episodes in its 37-year history. The Week 1 episode from Aggieland (Texas A&M) was the most-watched episode to air outside of the highly-anticipated Thanksgiving weekend show. Overall, the audience for “College GameDay” was up 47% year-over-year.
In the end, the Trojans beat the Tigers 27-20.
