UCF’s season finale against USF on Thursday had the lowest ratings since the two teams renewed their rivalry series. Being on Thanksgiving did not help.
UCF and South Florida was not a television draw for ESPN on Thanksgiving.
South Florida’s 44-3 win over UCF garnered 388,000 viewers nationally according to SportsTVRatings.com. It is the lowest viewed USF-UCF football game since its renewal of the rivalry in 2013. It is also the lowest viewed ESPN College Football game on Thursday nights this season.
The Knights and Bulls viewership was also significantly lower then last week’s UCF blowout loss at home to East Carolina which had 669,000 viewers nationally.
UCF-USF got moved from Black Friday to Thanksgiving in part because it was a better television time slot and exposure. However this year’s game viewership is down from last season’s UCF -USF game which was a noon kickoff on ESPN2. It had 447,000 viewers.
In 2013, UCF which was a top 10 team in the country hosted USF on Black Friday Night garnered 1.2 million viewers.
The game’s lack of competitiveness or UCF’s poor record did not help the numbers. But really the competition it was going up against television was to much to overcome.
The NFL’s primetime game of Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers which featured the Packers retiring Brett Favre’s number did a monster number with 28 million viewers nationally.
It also went up against Fox Sports 1 College Football’s telecast of Texas Tech and Texas which garnered 1.3 million viewers which was the most watched sporting event on cable.
Last season ESPN aired LSU at Texas A&M on Thanksgiving Night which garnered 2.9 million viewers easily beating the Texas-TCU game which garnered around 1.4 million viewers.
Next season ESPN will once again air LSU at Texas A&M. LSU declined to host the Thanksgiving game this season against Texas A&M which I first reported back in August with Carson Ingle on SportstalkFlorida Insiders Show on 1080am.
This was one of the reasons ESPN turn to USF-UCF game.
Locally it did not do much better as according to Orlando Sentinel’s Hal Boedeker, the Packers-Bears game was the most watched program on Thanksgiving night with 250,934 viewers followed by a repeat episode of “The Big Bang Theory”on CBS with 221,667 viewers.
The Florida State-Florida game had 350,068 viewers in Orlando alone which is most watched College Football game in Orlando this season to date.
Here is the segment from the Insiders show back on the Aug. 15 where I first brought up all the concerns about the game being held on Thanksgiving along with Carson Ingle and even suggesting to move the game to earlier in the season.
The announced attendance for Thursday’s game was 25,967.
It is worth pointing out as the conference makes up the schedule and American Conference commisioner Mike Aresco is big on the rivalry between USF and UCF for the conference and likes having the rivals end the season against each other.
It will be interesting to see if the low TV numbers and low numbers in attendance changes thinking of Aresco and USF and UCF. The Knights next year will have a new athletic director in Danny White and a new head coach in Scott Frost.
Here is Breakdown of UCF Games viewership nationally this season. CBS Sports Network does not make viewership public.
Sept. 3 vs. FIU: N/A (CBS Sports Network)
Sept. 12 at Stanford: 151,000 viewers (Fox Sports 1)
Sept. 19 vs Furman: N/A (ESPN3.com)
Sept. 26 at South Carolina: 380,000 viewers (ESPNU)
Oct. 3 at Tulane: 73,000 viewers (ESPNews)
Oct. 10 vs UConn: 111,000 viewers (ESPNews)
Oct. 17 at Temple: N/A (CBS Sports Network)
Oct. 24 vs Houston: 171,000 viewers (ESPNews)
Oct. 31 at Temple: N/A viewers (CBS Sports Network)
Nov. 7 at Tulsa: 67,000 viewers (ESPNews)
Nov. 19 vs East Carolina (Thursday): 669,000 viewers (ESPN)
Nov. 26 vs South Florida (Thursday): 388,000 viewers ( ESPN)
[…] The last time UCF was on Fox Sports 1 was on September 12th, 2015, for a late night kick-off at Stanford, which had 151,000 viewers. […]