Ohio State and Ryan Day were reportedly must-see TV for college football fans this season originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The Ohio State Buckeyes saw their season end with a Cotton Bowl loss to the eventual national title runner-up Miami Hurricanes. Falling three wins short of winning a national title for the second-straight season, the Buckeyes were still priority television for millions of college football fans.
Advertisement
On3 reported the 10 most-watched games of this past college football season Monday based on Nielsen. The Buckeyes were part of four of those games, which included wins in Week 1 and Week 14 against the Texas Longhorns (No. 9) and Michigan Wolverines (No. 5)
The other two entries for the Buckeyes were the aforementioned loss to the Hurricanes in the College Football Playoff and the Big Ten title loss to the Indiana Hoosiers, as both games came in at No. 1 (30.1 million viewers) and No. 5 (18.4 million viewers), respectively, as ESPN and Fox carried those specific games.
The Big Ten, in some fashion, was featured eight times in the top-10 list. More specifically, the Hoosiers were featured four times, the Oregon Ducks twice and the Wolverines once, as mentioned previously.
MORE: Reported Ohio State football OC hire Arthur Smith earns huge praise from ex-Buckeye star
Advertisement
If the list represents anything, it’s that the Big Ten is part of the same brand demand as the SEC, if not more.
It will be interesting to see if the Big Ten can keep this up this fall. But given the proof is in the pudding, it seems more likely to happen than not.
Better yet, regardless of what network airs the game, the Big Ten title rematch between the Hoosiers and Buckeyes in Bloomington Saturday, Oct. 17, has a chance to shatter the previous mark this fall.
MORE: Why Indiana fans should not be concerned with Omar Cooper Jr.’s NFL draft decision
We’ll see if it does.
