SKEDBALL: Weekend Sports TV Ratings

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The ratings below are household ratings from the 56 television markets with local Nielsen meters for Saturday September 7 and Sunday September 8, 2013. (The 56 markets out of 210 total cover about 70% of the US television population.)

NFL Week 1.  The FOX 4:30 afternoon game (Green Bay at San Francisco in almost all the country) matched the NBC Sunday Night game at 8:30 (NY Giants at Dallas), with both time periods averaging a 16.6 household rating in the 56 metered markets.

At 1:00 pm, the regional combination of six games on CBS (11.2 rating) narrowly beat the four-game combination on FOX (10.2 rating).  A solid but no spectacular start to the NFL season on its first Sunday.

The most rabid fans continue to reside in Milwaukee, rooting for the Green Bay Packers: a 50.8 rating in Milwaukee for the 4:30 FOX game against the 49ers.  Just behind were New Orleans residents: a 49.0 rating in the Big Easy market for the game against the Falcons on FOX at 1:00 (12:00 CT).

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Another good week for college football, especially for ESPN with a powerful combination of games at 4:30 and 8:00 pm Saturday near or above a 5 household rating.  FoX Sports 1 continues to struggle with less attractive games overall.

College Football — Week 2

ESPN Saturday 8:00 pm #14 Notre Dame-#17 Michigan  5.62 rating (+180% from 2.01 rating for Washington-LSU last year)

ESPN Saturday 4:30 pm #11 Georgia-#6 South Carolina 4.83 rating (+64% from 2.94 rating for Florida-Texas A&M last year)

ESPN Saturday 12:00 pm Miami-#12 Florida 3.72 rating (+128% from 1.63 rating for Auburn-Miss State last year)

ABC Saturday 3:30 pm #3 Ohio State-San Diego State (in 18 of 56 markets) or #2 Oregon-Virginia (in 38 of 56 markets) 2.9 rating (+4% from 2.8 rating last year)

FOX Saturday 7:30 pm #16 Oklahoma-West Virginia 1.9 rating (-21% from 2.4 rating for Nebraska-UCLA last year)

ESPN2 Saturday 8:45 pm Brigham Young-#15 Texas 1.02 rating (-58% from 2.42 rating for Georgia-Mizzou last year)

FS1 Saturday 10:30 pm Washington State-#25 USC 0.68 rating

FS1 Saturday 12:00 pm #13 Oklahoma State-UTSA 0.28 rating

FS1 Saturday 6:30 pm two-game regional 0.09 rating

NASCAR — Richmond 400

ABC Saturday 7:30-11:30 pm 2.9 rating (even with last year)

MLB coverage Saturday on FOX 2.0 rating, down a touch from a 2.1 rating last week.

FOX Sat 4:00 pm BOS-NYY (29 markets) LAD-CIN (24 markets) CHW-BAL (3 markets) 1.8 rating (+29% from 1.4 rating last year, also a 3-game regional at 4:00 pm)

• In the top 10 markets, one market with a team involved in FOX’s coverage delivered solid ratings: Boston (6.5)
• Three other top 10 markets had a team involved but had just okay to weak ratings:  Los Angeles (3.4), New York (2.7 for the Yankees) and Chicago (1.1 for the White Sox)
• The other six very large markets did not have teams involved and drifted below a 1 rating in most cases: Philadelphia (1.4), Dallas (0.5), San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose (0.8), Washington DC (0.9), Atlanta (0.4) and Houston (0.5)
• Outside the top 10 markets, two markets had a team on the air: Cincinatti (a very good 9.6 rating) and Baltimore (a solid 5.4 rating)

US Open tennis averaged a 4.9 rating on Sunday on CBS from 4:30-7:45 pm (up 26% from the 3.9 rating last year, also Serena Williams vs Azarenka in the women’s finals).