The Eyes of Texas the country were upon us last night. Texas vs. Notre Dame earned a massive 7.0 rating, set opening day records at ESPN and thrust the thrilling Longhorn win into the national spotlight. Local market college season kickoff records were set in places as disparate as San Diego, Philly, Indianapolis and San Antonio.
News: Notre Dame at Texas earns a massive 7.0 overnight on ABC pic.twitter.com/eEo8oYTsPi
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) September 5, 2016
To put that rating into context, a 7.0 earned by Ohio State-Michigan State was the highest rated college football game in 2015. And that happened during the college football peak interest of Week 12, not Week 1.
Cord cutter? No problem. Texas-Notre Dame also set the all-time record for streaming viewers on ESPN.
The local market data is pretty interesting as well:
In addition to Austin, six other markets set local market highs for a kickoff weekend game on ESPN’s networks:
- San Antonio (15.1)
- Dallas (13.1)
- Indianapolis (11.2)
- Albuquerque (7.1)
- San Diego (6.8)
- Philadelphia (6.4)
Overall, the top 10 markets for Notre Dame at Texas:
Rank Local Rating Market 1 25.4 Austin 2 17.3 Birmingham 3 15.1 San Antonio 4 13.1 Dallas-Ft. Worth 5 12.8 Oklahoma City 6 12.7 Columbus, OH 7 11.5 Houston 8 11.2 Indianapolis 9 11.0 Knoxville 10 10.7 Greenville