Alabama-Georgia headlines another strong week of TV ratings for SEC, ABC
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
Another week, another set of big ratings numbers for ABC and its college football coverage.
Week 5’s action was headlined by an under-the-lights showdown between the hedges as Alabama defeated Georgia in its first trip to Athens since 2015. According to ESPN’s PR account on X, the game averaged 10.4 million viewers and peaked at 13 million viewers.
The day started with what turned out to be an (unsurprisingly) non-competitive Notre Dame win at Arkansas. That one was the most-watched game of the week in the noon timeslot with 4.3 million viewers, peaking at 5.0 .
Ole Miss‘s win against LSU followed Arkansas-Notre Dame. The 3:45 p.m. kickoff pulled in 6.7 million viewers (peaking at 10.9 million), the most-watched late afternoon game of the week.
All told, ABC’s college football coverage has seen its highest-ever regular-season ratings through the first 5 weeks of the season.
Week 6 on ABC will see Georgia face Kentucky at Sanford Stadium at noon. The 3:30 p.m. ET game — College GameDay’s featured matchup — is Alabama vs. Vanderbilt. Then, at 7:30 p.m. ET, the scene shifts to Tallahassee as Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit, and Holly Rowe are on the call for Florida State vs. Miami in a battle between Sunshine State teams.
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
