NFL Thanksgiving, Ohio State-Michigan expected to draw huge viewership – The Athletic

If you love comfort food and TV football, this is your week.

Thursday is the NFL’s annual thanksgiving and Saturday brings us Ohio State in 2nd place in 6th place Michigan, all of which are expected to generate the best viewership numbers in the regular season. .

Let’s start with the ultimate Midwest rivalry, and perhaps the best of all sports, the Buckeyes and Wolverines.

Although Ohio State has largely dominated this game in the 21st century, Saturday noon on ABC has a compelling storyline: Michigan’s long-shot chance at its first CFP landing rests entirely on won a nasty match at the Big House. In addition, these teams have not met in 2020 because of the pandemic, which will further increase the number of eyeballs.

Last weekend, Michigan beat the unranked Maryland 59-18, and the Buckeyes are on a staggering 56-7 demolition of the heavily ranked Michigan State, having beaten Michigan two weeks ago in a game that has an average averaged 9.28 million viewers for “Fox Saturday’s Big Noon.” That’s the biggest college football viewership to date this season, but it’s likely to drop to second after Saturday.

And it could soon be a distant second.

“Ohio-Michigan State will easily provide the top audience of the college season. Jon Lewis, who has been tracking this number since 2006 at Sports Media Watch, said: “No game has hit the 10 million mark yet, and 10 million is probably the floor when it comes to this rivalry as both All teams are in the top 10.

The last regular college football broadcast to attract 10 million viewers was Clemson-Notre Dame primetime last November on NBC.

Patrick Crakes, a former Fox Sports executive turned media consultant, predicted a significantly larger audience: 16.2 million viewers, which would be the game’s best viewership in five years.