Fox Sports 1 Counts on USC (10:30 ET) to Boost Ratings

Fox Sports 1 hopes that USC (13 million metro population in Los Angeles) can improve on the low 0.45 Rating for Boise State (1.6 million population in all of Idaho) in their debut week. ABC’s marque match-up between Georgia and Clemson drew more than 10 times the viewers of any Fox Sports 1 game last Saturday.

Network	Rating	Kickoff	Match-up
ABC	4.70	8:00 PM, ET	Georgia vs. Clemson
ESPN	3.12	5:30 PM, ET	Alabama vs. Va Tech
ESPN	2.89	1:00 PM, ET	Rice vs. Texas A&M
ABC	2.20	3:30 PM, ET	Miss St. vs. Okl St.
ESPN	1.91	9:00 PM, ET	LSU vs. TCU
NBC	1.60	3:00 PM, ET	Temple vs. Notre Dame
ESPN2	1.45	12:00 PM, ET	Buffalo vs. Ohio State
ESPN	1.25	3:30 PM, ET	Ohio vs. Louisville
Fox Sports 1	0.45	10:00 PM, ET	Boise St. vs. Washington
Fox Sports 1	0.28	4:00 PM, ET	Nicholls St. vs. Oregon
Fox Sports 1	0.20	12:00 PM, ET	William and Mary vs. WVU

The 10:30 p.m. ET game on Fox Sports 1 could draw from the huge USC following and some Washington State fans encouraged that the team that held tough against Auburn last week. Boise State played Washington last week in the late Fox Sports 1 game.

Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Notre Dame, Alabama, Georgia and Texas dwarf viewership for most other programs and Fox Sports 1 features much smaller draws in the early days of the network. 

The first Fox Sports 1 game Saturday featured unknown UTSA hosting Oklahoma State at Noon ET and a 6:30 p.m. ET match-up of Louisiana-Lafayette at Kansas State. The K-State fans may be discouraged by their stunning loss last week to North Dakota State.

At 7 p.m. ET Fox airs a match-up of two good programs, with Oklahoma hosting West Virginia. However, the Mountaineers drew a terrible 0.2 rating last week on Fox Sports 1 when they barely survived William and Mary in the Noon ET game on Fox Sports 1.

That leaves USC’s hosting of a Washington State team that hung tough with Auburn last week to set a new high mark above the 0.45 for Boise State vs. Washington.