Ohio State–Michigan College GameDay: Highest Rated Broadcast in Show History

By D.J. Byrnes on November 30, 2016 at 6:16 pm
Lee Corso picks Ohio State to beat Michigan in Columbus.
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Two times this year, Lee Corso donned Brutus Buckeye's head to pick Ohio State to win the big game. Twice the local team backed him up.

The latest came last Saturday, when Corso moved to 16-6 in "headgear picks" that involve Ohio State, after the local team vanquished Michigan in double overtime.

College GameDay and ESPN pulled out all the stops, too, starting the broadcast five hours before kickoff. While it seemed like overkill to some, ESPN is laughing all the way to the bank.

From espnmediazone.com:

College GameDay Presented by The Home Depot from Ohio State on Saturday, Nov. 26 (9 a.m. – noon ET), was the show’s most-watched regular-season episode on record (382 episodes), garnering a total live audience of 2,682,000 average viewers.

ESPN’s TV audience (2,614,000 viewers) is the largest for the show since November 24, 2007, from Kansas City – which includes all episodes since the show expanded to three hours in 2013 – and is the second best for the program. Saturday was the most-streamed episode of GameDay, earning an average minute audience of 68,000 viewers.

Saturday’s College GameDay began with a special start time in advance of the epic showdown between Michigan and Ohio State, with the extra two hours (7 a.m. – 9 a.m.) delivering a total live audience of 885,000 average viewers.

As per usual, the Buckeyes bring the ratings:

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