Baylor vs Iowa State football: Game produced lowest network ratings ever

Saturday night’s Baylor-Iowa State matchup produced the lowest ratings for any college football game on a broadcast network.

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This was the second time that Fox was unable to reach a 1.0 overnight rating this season. From Sports Media Watch:

"The Baylor/Iowa State college football game drew a 0.9 overnight rating on FOX Saturday night, down 25% from Arizona/Washington last year (1.2), down 68% from Texas/Oklahoma State in 2012 (2.8), and tied as the lowest overnight ever for primetime college football on FOX. Fresno State/USC drew the same overnight in week one.The 0.9 is very likely the lowest ever for primetime college football on any broadcast network."

The best game on network TV was obviously Notre Dame’s contest against Syracuse at East Rutherford, New Jersey, which received a 2.8 overnight rating. There’s a reason why ESPN puts Notre Dame games on ABC in primetime when they get them, and that’s the reason. ESPN, a cable network, nearly doubled the 0.9 rating with Missouri at South Carolina.

Perhaps Fox thought they could get a better rating because those other matchups weren’t necessarily attractive, but either nobody really knows Fox is even showing games or people flipped and never returned after the rout was on shortly after the second quarter began.

It’s a mixture of both not featuring football rich schools that draws ratings (Texas-Kansas would have done better), people expecting a rout and not really caring, and the game actually being a rout and not competitive after the first period.

While this may put the kibosh on Iowa State primetime games on the FOX over-the-air network, there may be another primetime matchup down the road on FS1 or ESPNU. The Cyclones do have a second primetime game already scheduled against Texas on the Longhorn Network and Cyclones.tv.

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