What do you get when you combine two top SEC fanbases, a top-15 matchup and a shootout that goes into overtime? In the case of Tennessee football’s brawl with Georgia, it was one of the best-viewed games of the season. ESPN revealed that there were 12.6 million viewers for the game in Knoxville and a peak of 15.9 million viewers.
These numbers were good for the fourth-most-watched game on the network over the last decade. It was the most-viewed game at the 3:30 p.m. ET slot on ABC since 2006. This is also nearly double the second-most-watched game on the ESPN family of channels on Saturday. Florida-LSU on ABC following UT-UGA came in at 7.6 million. Third place was Clemson-Georgia Tech on ESPN in the early slate at 4.8 million.
This is a part of a record start for ABC’s broadcasting of college football games. This was the best three-week start to a season with an average of 7.8 million viewers. This is up 41% year-over-year. Through just this start, it already matched 2024’s total with four games clocking in over 10 million viewers.
Perhaps most notably, the game, according to On3, is the second-most viewed game of the college football season to this point. The only match ahead of UT-UGA is Texas at Ohio State in the first week of the season, which grabbed 16.6 million viewers on FOX.
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ESPN’s College GameDay being on the campus of the University of Tennessee also received high marks. The episode garnered 2.7 million viewers throughout the show and 3.4 million viewers in the final hour. This was the second-highest watched episode for a regular-season game in the history of the show. It peaked at 3.8 million.
Compared to last season, this Week Three episode is up 34% year-over-year. Overall, compared to other morning college football pregame shows, it surpassed the competition by more than triple.
The following game lived up to the billing. After jumping out to a 21-7 lead in the first quarter, the Vols held onto a narrow lead at halftime. Georgia took the lead in the third quarter, but Tennessee quarterback Joey Aguilar connected on a touchdown to Chris Brazzell to retake the lead heading into the fourth.
UT had fourth down up eight on defense, but gave up a touchdown on the play and the ensuing two-point conversion. Tennessee got the ball back and drove down the field, but a missed field goal at the end of regulation sent it to overtime. After settling for a field goal on offense, the Vols’ defense couldn’t keep Georgia out of the end zone.
Tennessee will have the chance to climb the leaderboard of viewership this weekend, as well. The Vols travel to Tuscaloosa to face Alabama at 7:30 p.m. ET on ABC. The Third Saturday in October is typically an extremely well-viewed game, as well.
