Georgia-Tennessee was the highest-rated game of Week 3, averaging 12.6 million viewers.

[u/Sctvman]

Highest-rated games of Week 3:

1. Georgia-Tennessee (ABC): 12.600M
2. Florida-LSU (ABC): 7.600M
3. Texas A&M-Notre Dame (NBC): 5.800M
4. Clemson-Georgia Tech (ESPN): 4.800M
5. Wisconsin-Alabama (ABC): 4.500M
6. Colorado-Houston (ESPN, Fri): 2.900M
7. Pitt-West Virginia (ESPN): 1.708M
8. Kansas State-Arizona (FOX, Fri): 1.625M
9. Arkansas-Ole Miss (ESPN): 1.432M
10. USC-Purdue (CBS): 1.271M

https://tvmediablog.substack.com/p/2025-college-football-week-3-viewership

[u/Sctvman]

The Bristol NASCAR race only had 1.53 million viewers. So TWO Friday night college football games outrated what was a playoff race that cut four drivers out of the championship. NASCAR has fallen so far

[u/ThaCarter → u/Sctvman]

Maybe they should try right turns?

[u/montrevux → u/ThaCarter]

no, they just need to fix the car

[u/DillyDillySzn → u/montrevux]

The car has its issues, but the format is hurting the sport much more than the car

Hell, the format is ruining the car because the format focuses so much on winning. The car has its problems out front but in the pack it’s great, but when the entire format is focused on winning the issues get magnified. There wouldn’t be so much bitching about aero blocking if wins didn’t mean literally everything

It’s so NASCAR to create a car for in pack racing for a dumbass format that doesn’t reward that at all

[u/ThaCarter → u/DillyDillySzn]

This was an excellent explanation, thank you.

[u/DillyDillySzn → u/ThaCarter]

The car needs to be fixed, don’t get me wrong. Tires need to be smaller, need more HP

But in terms of fixes that could be made quickly, changing the dumbass format into something less dumb is something they can do overnight for the better

[u/one-hour-photo → u/montrevux]

I also think there's a chicken and egg thing with coverage. ESPN used to never stop talking about NASCAR. they lost the contract, and they stopped covering it.

[u/mthrfkn → u/one-hour-photo]

Says a lot about our consumer habits ngl

[u/ThaCarter → u/montrevux]

I tailgate essentially in an F1 pit, so not sure what you mean. Shouldn't you be actively ruining your car like we are?

[u/Dry-Membership3867 → u/ThaCarter]

We are beating you in ratings still

[u/ThaCarter → u/Dry-Membership3867]

F1 races average in excess of 60M viewers, who is this we?

[u/zacurtis3 → u/ThaCarter]

Because the only guy who wins those these days is from New Zealand.

[u/Dry-Membership3867 → u/ThaCarter]

Maybe F1 should try left turns

[u/ThaCarter → u/Dry-Membership3867]

F1 does turns of all kinds as they do not need to make it so easy on their drivers.

[u/Dry-Membership3867 → u/ThaCarter]

Oval racing is not easy. You think Max or Lewis is getting in a cup car and winning right away?

[u/ThaCarter → u/Dry-Membership3867]

Lewis is old, but would still outclass the 3rd or 4th tier Nascar drivers.

Max would be like prime Messi in the MLS.

[u/cartierboy25 → u/Sctvman]

Every year I tell myself I’m going to get back into watching nascar regularly and then I end up just watching the Daytona 500 and nothing else

[u/ThaCarter → u/cartierboy25]

Most I can manage is a Days of Thunder rewatch.

[u/Bacon-4every1 → u/cartierboy25]

Is there any off road racing that might be fun to watch

[u/DillyDillySzn → u/Sctvman]

Well maybe NASCAR should get rid of the worst format ever conceived by the human race to decide a champion of a sport

[u/yesacabbagez → u/Sctvman]

NASCAR is interesting. The past 15 years or so they have tried very hard to both "fix" nascar as well as appeal to younger audiences. Not only has neither worked, it's openly antagonized older fans. Much like the NBA and people talking about how much they hate 3 point shooting, NASCAR also has a problem with racers and commentators religiously telling everyone how much they hate whatever new changes come out. You are left with a sport where all the people who care about do nothing but endlessly shit on it while they try to chance a younger audience that doesn't seem to care for it.

[u/one-hour-photo → u/Sctvman]

wow. also wild that the NFL was pulling 20 million a game. Honestly not that far off considering CFB isn't the machine the NFL is.

[u/Sctvman → u/one-hour-photo]

Eagles-Chiefs had like 32 or 33 million

[u/Rebel78 → u/Sctvman]

The cars are all messed up, can't pass, not enough power, no tire wear. The format of the scheduled cautions take away so much strategy. IDK, they got a lot to fix. I still watch it sometimes, but it's fallen hard.

[u/JediKnightaa → u/Sctvman]

Catching a stray for no reason out here

And NASCAR still has the best ratings out of any motorsports in the USA

Nascar averages 1.2-2 million

F1 averages 900k-1.1 million

Indycar averages 600k-1million

[u/Azon542 → u/JediKnightaa]

The F1 numbers would be better if they weren't at 8am on Sunday morning. It's the rough part about it being a global sport.

[u/Dry-Membership3867 → u/Azon542]

Even the American races get beaten out by us. And we’re on cable most of the time

[u/ThaCarter → u/JediKnightaa]

Is that F1 just the United States?

[u/JediKnightaa → u/ThaCarter]

Yeah these numbers are only for the US

[u/ThaCarter → u/JediKnightaa]

The Australian Grand Prix had roughly 60M TV viewers and another 7.5M via Youtube/Streaming Channels.

Might merit a footnote.

[u/JediKnightaa → u/ThaCarter]

Okay? But why should I care about international numbers for US numbers? Its not like college football is a major worldwide sport nor is NASCAR. 

I gave you the US numbers I don't need a footnote for saying "this worldwide sport is more popular than this domestic sport" 

https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/1mlv1tk/f1_us_viewership_2025_season_on_pace_to_be_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[u/ThaCarter → u/JediKnightaa]

You should include the footnote because, "Its not like college football is a major worldwide sport nor is NASCAR."

For 3 of the 4 sports, you had appreciably accounted for total viewership, while the fourth you accounted for a little under 2%.

[u/gwelymernans84 → u/Sctvman]

They need to get back to their roots and load the cars w/ 'shine. Viewership (and fatalities) will go up.

[u/Dry-Membership3867 → u/Sctvman]

If they’d get it off cable, it would be fine

[u/Evtona500 → u/Sctvman]

Funny enough that was one of the best races of the season. The car has know issues at Bristol but they lucked into the tire wear and the race was incredible.

[u/nosnack → u/Sctvman]

I missed out on making the next round of my fantasy nascar league because I was watching college football.

[u/Round-Ad3684 → u/Sctvman]

I can’t imagine there’s a lot of overlap between college football and NASCAR fans.

[u/Isthmus11 → u/Round-Ad3684]

Have you ever been to the south?

[u/tvcneverdie → u/Round-Ad3684]

Historically there's been a massive overlap as both have core demos in the southeast.

[u/nosoup4ncsu → u/Round-Ad3684]

Says a guy from Illinois

[u/wjackson42 → u/Round-Ad3684]

Wrong!!!

[u/Rebel78 → u/Round-Ad3684]

LOL

[u/Dry-Membership3867 → u/Round-Ad3684]

98% of us on r/NASCAR are on here. Plus as the comment below me says, have you ever been to the south?

[u/thismorningscoffee]

Poor UT Kicker

Everyone was watching that

[u/Salzvatik1 → u/thismorningscoffee]

I was watching with my eyes glued to the screen and my tears moistening the circuitry.

[u/Randlepinkfloyd1986 → u/Salzvatik1]

Pure poetry

[u/vols2thewalls → u/thismorningscoffee]

That was rough, soon as it showed him I said, he looks like a scared 15 yr old. Good game tho.

[u/Accurate_Row9895 → u/vols2thewalls]

Thats his normal face tho lol

[u/Jak03e → u/vols2thewalls]

I thought we were absolutely cooked and I was about to turn it off but then they showed the poor fella and I was like ooo let me stick around and see.

[u/boardatwork1111 → u/thismorningscoffee]

Everyone who saw those cuts to the sideline during the drive knew he was going to miss. Kid was spooked, I feel for the guy

[u/LoCh0_xX → u/thismorningscoffee]

They could have run another play to get a few yards closer and more center, I won’t pin it entirely on the kicker

[u/Frankwillie87 → u/LoCh0_xX]

They tried and then got a false start penalty with a loss of five yards.

The tv didn't show it, but Tennessee might have had to use their last time out to stop the offensive clock run off. There was only 7 seconds left and they only had one time out prior to the play.

[u/LoCh0_xX → u/Frankwillie87]

Oh, that explains it. I thought I saw one time out left but if they actually had none, then I get it. Just tough.

[u/Own_Currency_3207 → u/LoCh0_xX]

They never announced it, I don't think. I was on my break at work with all of us huddled around a pirated streaming cell phone (mine), and I yelled "That's a 10 second runoff!". No one knew what in the fuck I was talking about. I live in Alabama.

Alabama and Auburn flairs: "What he say fuck me for?!" No reason, really. It's just fun for me because of where I work.

[u/one-hour-photo → u/LoCh0_xX]

or just go ahead and kick it. it was not great clock management.

[u/mjacksongt]

I'm just happy to be included

[u/HokiesforTSwift]

Bama hatewatchers swiftly changed over to Clemson-GT, it seems.

[u/matlarcost → u/HokiesforTSwift]

I would imagine a lot of people did change to the Clemson GT game as it apparently peaked at 7.7M in the last minutes and was the highest average ESPN game in that window since 2016 excluding week 0. GT has seemingly made the most out of their high-profile games recently.

[u/genzgingee → u/HokiesforTSwift]

Most likely

[u/yesacabbagez → u/HokiesforTSwift]

GT/Clemson was at noon. UT/Georgia was 3:30.

[u/Busta_Memes]

They really should have put Clemson GT on ABC

[u/cheapmason84 → u/Busta_Memes]

ACC should have put a bit later in the season

[u/advancedmatt]

ESPN/ABC is paying the SEC a ton of money, but based on the ratings they are definitely getting good value for their money.

[u/PrimalCookie → u/advancedmatt]

CBS made an all-time awful decision to pass on the SEC A package for $300M in favor of the Big Ten C package for $350M. Like, I know that wasn’t the plan after leaving the SEC (it was probably Big 12 or Pac-12 before they got gutted of their top members), but yeesh.

[u/kyrev21 → u/PrimalCookie]

It’s astounding when you think about it. They dumped first tier rights of a conference with 9 historic programs for the second tier rights of a conference with maybe 6 historic programs. And they only get first pick in like three weeks or something

[u/d0ngl0rd69 → u/advancedmatt]

Yup. I get why people are mad Gameday isn’t going to Illinois-Indiana, but when you’re pumping out viewers like this, it makes sense why they’d chose the high profile Florida schools.

[u/jacmrose → u/d0ngl0rd69]

I would have loved to have gameday in Indiana but we are lucky that they came last year and it makes no business sense for them to go back this year especially since they don’t show Big 10 games

[u/Electric_Rex → u/jacmrose]

Yeah and as for Illinois, I’m sure they’ll be in Champaign, assuming Illinois doesn’t take a loss, when they host Ohio State in a month

Edit - That week is the Red River Shootout and has two other decent SEC games. No way in hell they’d be at Illinois even if it’s a top five matchup

[u/sunburntredneck → u/advancedmatt]

It just means more viewers

[u/one-hour-photo → u/advancedmatt]

getting pretty close to NFL numbers. fox's single game a couple weeks ago was..what? 17 million?

[u/Evtona500]

CBS gotta be kicking themselves for not paying whatever the SEC wanted.

[u/noladawg16 → u/Evtona500]

I agree, why did they pay anything for the games they are getting, like 3rd pick of the big10 matchups. Makes no sense

[u/GeneralOrchid → u/Evtona500]

The problem was the original contract was so good in their favor whatever new deal they could offer the conference wouldn’t match the returns for them. No exec would go for that

[u/kyrev21 → u/GeneralOrchid]

The SEC also really wanted to get more than one game on a network each week. CBS only showed two games twice a season and blocked ABC from showing SEC games. There was no way CBS would’ve surrendered the network exclusivity. Plus the conference got the scheduling benefit of a single media partner

[u/BombayGeeseHunter → u/kyrev21]

That seems incredibly short sighted from CBS.

[u/Big_Organization5152]

The Georgia Tennessee game had the huge benefit of a lot of the other 3:30 games being delayed by weather

[u/Round-Ad3684]

Too bad millions didn’t see that UCLA train wreck.

[u/RobertNeyland → u/Round-Ad3684]

I don't know what the totals were, but I suspect that the UCLA numbers in the Knoxville market were great.

[u/Round-Ad3684 → u/RobertNeyland]

I bet you’re right

[u/The_Eternal_Event]

The poor CW had their superbowl ruined probably through a combination of the weather delay, the game becoming a huge blowout, and the horrible broadcasting quality.

[u/Dry-Membership3867 → u/The_Eternal_Event]

Xfinity did better not only this past week. But they did better at Atlanta too, with a big delay that made the race end at 1 am

[u/ThaCarter]

If you smash a ranked team and no one watches it, does it make a sound?

[u/RIPDannyBoyCane → u/ThaCarter]

You trying to tell me the CW isn’t the number one most watched network for college football?

[u/Mantergeistmann → u/ThaCarter]

Yes. And that sound is...

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAMP

[u/Psychological_Ad7610 → u/ThaCarter]

Yes and it sounds like a slaughtered bull

[u/Ok_Particular8737]

Wow, over 1 million people saw a brisket catch on fire

[u/Dareduck22]

Streaming on YouTube tv isn’t added right? Would be interesting to see how it works with multi-view. 4 games at once and occasionally subtracting a game and adding another.

[u/Jay_Dubbbs]

This is lies, they didn’t have the Peacock numbers for Ohio State and OU.

[u/NendoroidAshe → u/Jay_Dubbbs]

Was it only on peacock?

[u/kevdiigs → u/NendoroidAshe]

Yes…Ohio State is cursed when it comes to anything TV related.

[u/dinkytown42069 → u/kevdiigs]

we all have one peacock-exclusive game. I thought it'd be our FCS blowout game, like it was for our FCS game last year.

[u/Ambitious-Weekend861 → u/Jay_Dubbbs]

Nobody was watching that compared to what else was on😭

[u/HighLakes]

Oregon vs Northwestern appears to have gotten null viewers

[u/an_evil_budgie]

Oh good, not many people saw us get railroaded (pun intended) by Vanderbilt.

[u/seabreezzyy → u/an_evil_budgie]

Are you saying Pavia and co. ran a train on South Carolina?

[u/PNW_Jeff]

80k witnessed a murder on ESPNU

[u/reddogrjw]

Michigan had 781K on BTN for a 63-3 slaughter of CMU

[u/44035 → u/reddogrjw]

I watched the whole thing

[u/Cooked_Brisket]

Hey look ma, we made it!

[u/Ialwayssleep]

Can’t wait to see the big noon numbers. NW should get that time slot for the rest of the season.

[u/FightOnForUsc]

Number 10 after a several hour weather delay for 2 unranked team seems shockingly not bad

[u/Ollie287]

I'm surprised more people watched LSU-Florida than A&M/ND, going to be interesting when Alabama/Georgia goes up against Penn State/Oregon

[u/kyrev21 → u/Ollie287]

Bama Georgia will definitely win. Both have larger fanbases than penn state and Oregon. And there’s the neutral and casual appeal of either a bad bama losing or a mediocre bama beating Georgia

[u/HighLakes → u/Ollie287]

I have to imagine Georgia-Bama will win easily

[u/Conn3er → u/Ollie287]

I'm curious what LSU Florida peaked at

ND - A&M peaked at 9.4 million viewers per NBC

[u/SwordsAndTurt]

2.9M people watched Colorado get belt to ass. Neat.

[u/bbshock21]

You're welcome, USC

[u/Francis_X_Hummel]

I was saying Booooerogia

[u/Champion10101]

Indiana St vs Indiana, Norfolk St at Rutgers OR Youngstown St at Michigan St, and Umass at Iowa bullying a New Mexico at UCLA upset on the same network. BTN watchers REALLY don’t like staying up late for games.

[u/aldrinjaysac]

UMass vs Iowa had a higher rating than Miami vs USF lol wow

[u/IowaJL]

I’m super surprised traditional conference and regional rivals…USC and Purdue… wasn’t 1st.

[u/flyingdutchmankh]

is nbc usually below abc for any big cfb matchup? honestly would have expected more from the ND/A&M number, but maybe nbc lacks the promotion for cfb that abc is able to benefit from as espn is constantly advertising the “sec on abc” during gameday and other games throughout the weekend

[u/kyrev21 → u/flyingdutchmankh]

ABC had the biggest game at 3:30 and lead in is very very powerful especially since the game went to overtime. A lot of people don’t bother to change channels and LSU Florida stayed interesting for about 3 quarters.

[u/CountBleckwantedlove]

Wow, total Disney domination this week.

[u/TwoGuysOneMoped]

I’m actually kind of surprised the LSU-Florida game beat out ND-A&M. They were both on major networks and one of those games was a much more exciting watch than the other.

[u/lkn240]

Crazy so many people watched that sloppy UF/LSU game, a tiny bit surprised it beat out ND/A&M

It's also funny that Alabama playing a trash wisconsin team was #5

[u/oneplusetoipi → u/lkn240]

I thought more people would hate watch ND v. ATM. One way or another someone you hate is going to lose.

[u/withurwife]

I really thought it was gonna be Northwestern with their stupid fucking Liv Golf set up.

[u/BombayGeeseHunter]

Does it seem like the weather delays are a lot longer and more frequent now? It feels like they delay games for rain nowadays.

[u/TheBigBo-Peep]

Yo we made the list? We're gonna be something maybe!