UGA Delivers in Big Way for ESPN

ATHENS - Georgia’s draw on television continues to roll. 

ESPN said on Tuesday that the Bulldogs’ 3,901,000 viewers during Saturday night was college football’s most-watched primetime game outside of ABC’s Saturday Night Football. 

Contractual requirements have prevented UGA from playing on ABC this season as the Bulldogs’ and all SEC teams are not permitted to play on ABC without being the away team. Both of the Bulldogs’ away contests have been SEC games. 

Georgia’s win over Notre Dame still stands at college football’s most-watched game of the year so far. That game pulled in 9.29 million viewers, which easily beats out Texas-LSU’s 8.63 million. 

While full viewing results of the weekend have not yet been released, UGA’s 3.9 million number against the Vols is checks in as the No. 15 overall game of the year. It nearly doubled the number of viewers for Auburn’s lopsided win over State from the week before in the same time-slot on ESPN. 

“For ESPN, the audience was up 51% from last year’s same game window (Kentucky at Texas A&M) and delivered the network’s best Saturday audience this season, outside the stand-alone Week Zero matchup between Florida and Miami on Aug. 24,” Disney said in a release. 

UGA now has the overall No. 1 and No. 15 televised games as of this moment. Data released later in the week may or may not alter the Tennessee game as the No. 15 overall game of the year so far.

Georgia-Tennessee is ESPN’s No. 3 overall game of the year behind only Florida-Miami and Notre Dame-Louisville, which were the only college games on at the time.