The premiere of Fox’s new college football pregame show Big Noon Kickoff drew 838,000 viewers with an 0.8 overnight rating. ESPN’s College GameDay pulled in 1,768,000 viewers. GameDay added another 139,000 viewers from its ESPNU airing.
No real conclusion can be drawn from Big Noon Kickoff’s numbers this earlier on. We will get a clearer, but still premature, picture next week after seeing how many of these viewers come back after a debut that had as many ups as it did downs.
There are several factors to consider here. Fox has the advantage of their show being available in many more homes as it’s shown on broadcast television, as opposed to cable like GameDay. It’s also only an hour long, an advantage because it’s much easier to hold an audience for a one-hour show versus one that is three hours long. However, it’s still unrealistic to expect any new college football pregame show to beat GameDay in viewership. GameDay has become so historical on Saturday mornings, it’s basically sacrilegious for any college football fan to watch anything else on game day mornings. Regardless of who Fox, or any other network, puts on the show, there is no way to just get that many people to change their routine.
The biggest issues at hand: How many viewers can Big Noon Kickoff can takeaway from GameDay this season and whether or not it can find it’s own dedicated audience. We’ll find out next week.
