College GameDay took a hit after just 1 week of the college football season for the simple reason that Lee Corso would no longer be part of the show.
The 90-year-old legend of ESPN’s signature Saturday morning preview show said his goodbye at the end of the Week 1 show on Aug. 30 in Columbus, Ohio, site of the Texas-Ohio State showdown. Corso’s last episode was also GameDay’s highest-rated episode, with 3.5 million viewers tuning in to see Corso and specifically to see his last head-gear pick.
The popular show took its road act to Norman in Week 2, site of the Michigan-Oklahoma showdown, and it turns out that while Corso’s presence will never be filled, GameDay is doing just fine. ESPN reported on Tuesday that the Week 2 show was the second-most-watched regular-season episode ever.
The numbers for last Saturday were off the charts, even without Corso. There were 2.6 million viewers, which was an improvement of 22% over Week 2 last season, per ESPN. The network also reported 3.3 million final-hour viewers, which has always been the staple of the show as it led up to Corso’s head-gear pick. The ratings peaked at 3.7 million viewers, and those final-hour ratings beat the competition — FOX’s Big Noon Kickoff — by an astounding 172% head-to-head.
ESPN celebrated those post-Corso ratings in this post:
GameDay will be staying in SEC country for Week 3, with the show coming to Knoxville for Tennessee‘s home showdown against Georgia on Saturday afternoon.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
