The game was close and went into overtime and that was enough to keep viewers hooked throughout a contest that was billed as “The Game of the Century”. Despite the lack of scoring, fans kept watching and CBS saw its highest ratings for a regular season college football game since 1989’s matchup between Notre Dame and Miami which drew almost 22½ million people.
The rating for Saturday night’s game was an amazing 11.5 rating with a 20 share, up 161% from last year’s Alabama-LSU game which was played in the afternoon.
So CBS’ trade with ESPN, Versus and CBS Sports Network to bring LSU-Alabama into primetime definitely paid off in spades.
LSU-ALABAMA IS MOST-WATCHED REGULAR-SEASON GAME ON CBS SPORTS IN 22 YEARS WITH AVERAGE OF 20.0 MILLION VIEWERS
Game Scores in Ratings with 161% Increase Over Last Year’s Match-Up
CBS Sports’ coverage of the SEC ON CBS on Saturday, Nov. 5 (8:00-11:39 PM, ET), which saw *No. 1-LSU beat No. 2-Alabama, averaged 20.011 million viewers (Persons 2+). Saturday night’s game was the most-watched regular-season game on CBS Sports in 22 years (22.495 million; Notre Dame-Miami; 11/25/1989).
The game earned an average fast-national household rating/share of 11.5/20, up 161% from last year’s 4.4/10 (No. 5-Alabama vs. No.12-LSU; 3:30-7:09 PM, ET; 11/6/10). The game also was up 150% from CBS Sports’ SEC primetime game on October 1, 2011 featuring then No. 3-Alabama at No. 12-Florida, which earned a 4.6/8.
Saturday night’s game viewership and HH rating/share peaked at 24.305 million viewers and 14.3/26, respectively, from 11:30-11:39 PM, ET).
That’s all.
