TV Sets Continue to Turn on for UGA
ATHENS - Georgia’s strong TV numbers continue - even with some changes in broadcast times.
The No. 2 Bulldogs are the ninth most-watched football team in the country this year even without playing a game in primetime. UGA’s win over Missouri was the No. 3 college football broadcast of the weekend even though the game kicked off at noon.
Georgia will add heavily to its viewership totals Saturday. This weekend’s game against Tennessee typically draws a large crowd. CBS will broadcast the game at 3:30 as it has for much of the last decade. Since 2012, UGA-UT has averaged 4,730,000 viewers per game.
That average audience number might be difficult to approach this year, however. Tennessee’s lackluster performance this season so far has hurt numbers for the UT. For instance, the Vols’ game with Florida, which used to be a staple of the start of the college football season, drew only 2,108,000 viewers in primetime on ESPN. That’s 1,220,000 fewer viewers than UGA-Missouri drew on the same network at noon.
Nonetheless, Georgia is heading into the meat of its viewing schedule. The Bulldogs will face Tennessee this week on CBS. Then the Dawgs will host Vanderbilt at night. If the Vandy is on the SEC Network it will not be rated and will have no viewer counts. But an appearance on ESPN or ESPN2 would mean millions more counted viewers.
The big matchup with LSU on the road on October 13 could draw one of the largest audiences of the year. The duo rarely plays, but when they do they attract a large audience. In 2013 LSU-UGA pulled 7.39 million. Unlike 2013, both LSU and UGA are expected to be undefeated when they meet. In the 2011 SEC Championship Game, just over 12.016 million watched No. 1 LSU rally and then blowout No. 16 UGA.
Needless to say those are heavy numbers. 2018 LSU-UGA should draw a massive audience.
The two largest TV games of the year thus far - Michigan at Notre Dame on NBC Primetime (7.091 million) and Ohio State vs. TCU on ABC Primetime (7.328 million) - will get challenged this weekend when the Buckeyes host Penn State.
But a matchup between top 5 LSU and UGA could get upwards of 9 million viewers if both teams come into the game unscathed and with back-to-back weeks of promotion on CBS (UGA hosts UT this weekend while the Tigers travel to fight the Gators next weekend). Needless to say UGA-LSU would be the biggest game of the weekend, and could be one of the top three biggest games of the year in the regular season in terms of rankings.
Georgia’s TV draw has grown strong of late. Consider last year that the Dawgs’ trip to Auburn in November in the afternoon on CBS outdrew that network’s presentation of Alabama-LSU in primetime. The Bulldogs had two of the top ten regular season games of the year last year (11 at Auburn; 12/2 vs. Auburn) and the top two overall games in terms of total viewers (Rose Bowl; 26.913 million viewers and the NCG; 28.443 million viewers).
More than 106 million viewers watched UGA play last fall.