TV Ratings: Texas Win Over Notre Dame in 2OT a Big Win for ESPN and ABC

What should have been a sleepy ratings Sunday before Labor Day — no NFL games, no big scripted or unscripted TV events — was set aflame by a barnburner of a college football game, thanks to a two-overtime victory by the Notre Dame Fighting Irish over the University of Texas Longhorns.

ABC’s telecast of Sunday evening’s Notre Dame-UT game garnered 10.46 million total viewers and a 3.0 in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic, according to early Nielsen estimates.

[...] that’s not a patch on most NFL games, which regularly double or triple that demo rating.

[...] the NFL has long been far more popular among TV audiences than its college counterpart, and college is starting to see some gains.

Ratings: NBC's Preseason Football Fends Off 'Big Brother'-Boosted CBS

Notre Dame and UT played each other on the same weekend last year, but on a Saturday, for far less successful ratings results — a preliminary 2.6 household rating, versus a 7.0 for Sunday’s game.

A new episode of “Big Brother” on CBS notched 5.22 million viewers and a 1.3 in the demo, understandably down almost 33 percent from the previous week (did we mention it’s a holiday weekend?).