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Most watched State athletic broadcast ever?

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Thor.sixpack

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Sep 12, 2012
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Quoting the Outkick article on the ratings from Saturday’s game:

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CBS Sports announced today that Mississippi State vs. LSU from Saturday averaged 4.442 million viewers. This was up 23 percent compared to Alabama vs. Ole Miss, which aired on September 28th last year and averaged 3.607 million viewers.

Mississippi State-LSU peaked at 6.066 million viewers.

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What is the highest viewed State sporting event of all time? 6 million viewers has to be up there. Would the 96 Final Four be up there? Do the CBS Games of the Week routinely outdraw top events in other sports?
 
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MSUDC11

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Aug 23, 2012
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This one is probably not as highly rated in our history as you would think.

The 2014 Alabama game had 10.27 million viewers. The 2014 Auburn game had less viewers than the Bama game but more than Saturday. Even the 2014 Orange Bowl, which did not have great ratings for Orange Bowl standards, still had like 8.9 million viewers. Couldn't find any ratings for the 1996 Final Four but based on the ratings for the following few years after that my guess is that had at least 10-12 million viewers if not more. And there may be other games I'm not thinking of that had more viewers.

Saturday might have been in the Top 10 of most watched games in our history, but there are several games ranked ahead of it.
 
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Thor.sixpack

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Sep 12, 2012
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Thanks for posting that, I didn’t know that footage existed. Our crowd was white hot and incredibly loud for at that time 35,000 capacity.

I can’t find ratings books for that week but I did locate the rating that UGA/Clemson pulled week 1 that year, which did a 15.1 on ABC (12.6 million viewers). Have to assume that our game did somewhere in the neighborhood of that given the star power of Walker at the time.
 
SirBarksalot

SirBarksalot

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May 28, 2007
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Thor said:
Thanks for posting that, I didn’t know that footage existed. Our crowd was white hot and incredibly loud for at that time 35,000 capacity.

I can’t find ratings books for that week but I did locate the rating that UGA/Clemson pulled week 1 that year, which did a 15.1 on ABC (12.6 million viewers). Have to assume that our game did somewhere in the neighborhood of that given the star power of Walker at the time.
Click to expand...
What people don’t remember, especially if you weren’t alive or were too young, is that there were literally 4 channels on most people’s TVs. 3 of which carried football.

Listening to Rob Lowe on Rogan a month or so ago, he was talking about his first tv job as a kid, 1979-80. It was the 2nd lowest rated show on television at the time. Up against 60 minutes. It’s ratings share would be like top 10 or some crazy number today.
 
Maroon Eagle

Maroon Eagle

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May 24, 2006
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Oh wow. I didn’t realize that was the first live network broadcast from Starkville. I was at that game.
 
onewoof

onewoof

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Mar 4, 2008
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When the bama kicker hit the cross bar late in the game in Starkville in 2017 viewers shot up. I think that one hit 6M.
 
aTotal360

aTotal360

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Nov 12, 2009
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And just imagine if LSU was a national brand. Ratings would have been through the roof.
 
SirBarksalot

SirBarksalot

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Maroon Eagle said:
Oh wow. I didn’t realize that was the first live network broadcast from Starkville. I was at that game.
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Just another historic game I wasn’t in attendance..but at the time we didn’t have lights in the stadium, so temporary lights were brought in just for this game. Watched it on TV...so I say I saw something more historic than you baws that were there.. lol
 
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karlchilders.sixpack

karlchilders.sixpack

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Jun 5, 2008
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I was there,

who is going to miss Hershel Walker coming to town.

But anyway, I made all of the home games thru then. (and Jackson)
 
SirBarksalot

SirBarksalot

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May 28, 2007
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karlchilders said:
who is going to miss Hershel Walker coming to town.

But anyway, I made all of the home games thru then. (and Jackson)
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well, I was 14, and my dad was an MSU curmudgeon and we lived at the Rez. That I’ve forgiven...what I’ve not forgiven is Bama in ‘80. We had tickets..but were listening to Jack in the backyard..just miles away.
my grandparents actually took me to more of those Jackson games than my dad ever did. They’d been going for years...partying at the Admiral Benbow especially on those double header weekends
 
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greenbean.sixpack

greenbean.sixpack

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Oct 6, 2012
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SirBarksalot said:
well, I was 14, and my dad was an MSU curmudgeon and we lived at the Rez. That I’ve forgiven...what I’ve not forgiven is Bama in ‘80. We had tickets..but were listening to Jack in the backyard..just miles away.
my grandparents actually took me to more of those Jackson games than my dad ever did. They’d been going for years...partying at the Admiral Benbow especially on those double header weekends
Click to expand...

Is the Admiral Benbow still in operation as a retirement home? I haven't by there in a while.
 
Maroon Eagle

Maroon Eagle

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The lights were for the LSU game later that year. I didn't attend that game either.
 
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patdog

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May 28, 2007
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Actually, back then only 1 channel carried college football. ABC had the contract with the NCAA. And they only showed 1 or 2 games per week.
 
mount lefroy

mount lefroy

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SirBarksalot said:
Just another historic game I wasn’t in attendance..but at the time we didn’t have lights in the stadium, so temporary lights were brought in just for this game. Watched it on TV...so I say I saw something more historic than you baws that were there.. lol
Click to expand...

Not this game. You are thinking of an LSU MSU game that was the first under the temporary lights. We won that on a field goal by Dana Moore.

This game was a mid day game vs Georgia and we lost.
 
GloryDawg

GloryDawg

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I don't know about the ratings but I bet State had more viewer pulling for them than LSU.
 
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