For a while there last season, it seemed as though Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff had finally put the pieces together to challenge ESPN’s College GameDay for Saturday morning viewership.
So far in the 2024 college football season, it seems like GameDay has pushed back and reclaimed its spot as the go-to morning program. Of course, the season is still young.
ESPN announced Tuesday that after four weeks, College GameDay is “off to its best 4-episode season start EVER” after pulling in an average of 2.2 million viewers on Saturday. For reference, while the show has been a weekly Saturday morning staple since 1996, it first went on the road in 1993 and began as a studio show in 1987.
As for individual weeks, they’ve averaged 1.6M (Week 0 in Ireland), 2.5M (Week 1 at Texas A&M), 2.2M (Week 2 at Michigan), 2M (Week 3 at South Carolina), and 2.1M (Week 4 at Oklahoma). It’s worth noting they do not appear to be counting the Week 0 number as part of that overall average.
We would compare that to Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff but Fox hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with the viewership data. We know that BNK garnered 2.23 million viewers for the final hour of Week 2’s show from Ann Arbor. However, we’ve learned that their final hour in Week 4’s show from Ohio State pulled in just 1.23M. The lack of enthusiasm around the OSU-Marshall matchup likely played a role.
Fox has been pretty happy to share their fantastic numbers for College Football Friday, where they’ve been dominating ESPN so far. So the fact that they’re reticent to promote the BNK numbers tells us what we need to know.
In terms of the games themselves, Fox had a solid Saturday, with Marshall-Ohio State drawing 3.96 million, up 83% from Oklahoma-Cincinnati last year, as well as 3.64 million for Colorado’s win over Baylor, which was up 146% from Oregon State-Washington State in that spot last year. Colorado continues to be a draw but not quite like last season, though Fox is hoping they’ll give Big Noon Kickoff a boost when they head to Orlando for the Buffs’ game against UCF.
Last November, the two college football pregame shows found themselves locked in a ratings war that saw both sides claim victory. Now it feels like GameDay has reasserted its dominance. So what’s happening?
First and foremost, GameDay seems completely rejuvenated with its lineup that includes stalwarts like Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso as well as recent additions in Pat McAfee and Nick Saban. It feels like they’ve cracked the code thanks to the McAfee-Saban “bromance.” Speaking of, love him or hate him, there’s no denying that McAfee attracts an audience. The show has also shown up mostly at one of the most important games of the week, “bizarre” South Carolina site aside.
Comparatively, Big Noon Kickoff lacks the same juice. Mark Ingram does what he can but there’s already a staid quality to the lineup that includes Urban Meyer, Brady Quinn, and Charles Woodson. While GameDay moments routinely go viral, the same can’t be said for BNK. It also hasn’t helped that their gameday selections have been more focused on promoting the Big Noon Saturday game rather than showing up at the most notable campuses each week.
Ultimately, Fox’s Friday night games are putting up strong numbers and their Saturday game ratings are also solid, so there isn’t too much to complain about. We know that BNK will be in Columbus for The Game between Michigan and Ohio State, which will put up monster numbers, but other than that it’s hard to know if they’ll be able to do enough to overcome the personalities of GameDay this year. Maybe that’s a calculation Fox is fine making, but it does seem odd given how close BNK came to snatching GameDay’s crown, albeit briefly, just a few months ago.