College Football Kickoff Commands Top 10 Rankings: The Week In Sports Ratings

R. Thomas Umstead
·1 min read
Trey Benson #3 of the Florida State Seminoles breaks a tackle from Sai'vion Jones #35 of the LSU Tigers in the first quarter at Camping World Stadium on September 03, 2023 in Orlando, Florida.
Trey Benson #3 of the Florida State Seminoles breaks a tackle from Sai'vion Jones #35 of the LSU Tigers in the first quarter at Camping World Stadium on September 03, 2023 in Orlando, Florida.

The opening week of the college football season dominated the sports ratings chart last week, securing the top 10 most-watched telecasts.

The onslaught was led by ABC’s September 3 LSU-Florida State telecast, which pulled in 9.16 million viewers -- the network’s second-best regular season game in the past five years, according to Nielsen ratings published by SportsMedia Watch. Fox’s September 2 Colorado-Christian University telecast – which marked former NFL star Deion Sanders’ debut as Colorado coach – finished second for the week with 7.26 million viewers.

Among non-college football telecasts, USA Network’s September 3 NASCAR Cup playoff race from Darlington topped the list with 2.28 million viewers, followed by ABC’s September 3 coverage of US Open tennis and Fox’s September 2 Saturday baseball telecast, which drew 1.92 million viewers.