Broadcast of Wisconsin's blowout of Michigan earns huge primetime ratings

The Wisconsin-Michigan game took the college football ratings by storm this weekend.

It was the second-most viewed game of the week and helped ESPN and ABC absolutely crush it on Saturday:

Week 11 @ESPNCFB viewership is in:

🏈 #NDvsBC was the top sporting event on Saturday (5.1M viewers)
🏈 ABC had its second most-viewed tripleheader of the season
🏈 ABC won Saturday night across all networks in all key demos pic.twitter.com/fJogQdwhQ7

— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) November 17, 2020

The game peaked at 4.7M viewers, despite the game being a blowout for almost the entire time.

Wisconsin was up 28-0 at halftime and only surrendered 11 points throughout the four quarters. It’s almost unheard of for those ratings to be that good

This was also ABC’s second-most viewed triple-header of the season. Even the Notre Dame-Boston College game had 5.1M viewers on Saturday night and that game ended up being a 45-31 blowout.

To kick off the triple-header, Indiana rolled to a 24-0 shutout of Michigan State as the Hoosiers continued to roll. That game was the top game of the weekend in that time slot.

We’ll have to see what this week’s games hold for ESPN and ABC as the nightcap game is Oklahoma-Oklahoma State.