Georgia Bulldogs' Win over Arkansas Razorbacks is Most-Watched Game on Cable in 2021
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ATHENS - The No. 2 Georgia Bulldogs now have both the biggest cable and network college football games of the 2021 season.
No. 2 Georgia’s blowout win over No. 8 Arkansas was watched by 3,845,000 viewers at Noon on Saturday making it the largest audience for a college football game on cable this season. No. 5 Georgia’s 10-3 win over No. 3 Clemson on ABC, with 8,863,000, remains the most-watched game of the college football year overall.
According to Disney it was a record day in Athens building up to the top-ten showdown. ESPN’s College Gameday had a record audience - 2,155,000 viewers - the most-viewed three-hour edition of that show in October in the program’s history. The final hour of the program, which saw Lee Corso pick the Bulldogs to win, had 3 million viewers, which is the most for the final hour of the program since November 2018.
In fact, College Gameday from Athens was the No. 4 overall show on cable television on Saturday with the Dawgs-Hogs at No. 1, Auburn-LSU at No. 2 and the Gators’ loss at Kentucky at No. 3. The SEC-powered Saturday never had a program under 2 million viewers the entire day.
Disney added that Georgia’s lopsided win over Arkansas at Noon was the top game for ESPN at that time slot since 2016.
The numbers continue to proved that Georgia is one of the top draws in college football. The Bulldogs will play on CBS three of the next four weeks of the season - including traditional rivalries against Auburn and the Gators. Those games, along with the home date with Kentucky, will add to the Bulldogs’ already strong start to the 2021 season.
Notre Dame, thanks to early spotlight games with Florida State and Wisconsin, has the most viewers this season so far in college football. Penn State should take over the No. 1 spot for the season after this weekend’s matchup with top-five Iowa. Alabama’s primetime matchup on CBS with Texas A&M is suddenly watered down after the Aggies’ slide to 3-2. Meanwhile perennial TV power Ohio State will have to work its way through two snoozers before what could be the top game of the year in three weeks against Penn State in Columbus.
Saturday’s very strong showing for the Dawgs at Noon against the Hogs stands as the 29th most-watched game of Kirby Smart’s tenure in Athens. The game marks the 50th time since 2016 that a Georgia game had one million viewers or more.
Total Viewers Through Week 5
1 - Notre Dame - 19,509,000
2 - Penn State - 18,462,000
3 - Alabama - 18,329,000
4 - Ohio State - 16,931,000
5 - Georgia - 16,374,000
6 - Florida - 15,805,000
7 - Wisconsin - 15,648,000
8 - Michigan - 14,002,000
9 - Oklahoma - 13,854,000
10 - Clemson - 13,149,000
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