College Football on TV: Alabama vs. Notre Dame Redux

The first weekend of the 2015 NCAA football season saw a rematch of the 2013 National Championship game between the University of Alabama and the University of Notre Dame, but this time the match-up wasn't head to head on the field. Instead, the two teams competed with one another for ratings on Saturday night, as Notre Dame faced off against the University of Texas in prime time on NBC at the same time that Alabama took on the University of Wisconsin on ABC at the same time. The results were pretty much the same as those of the 2013 championship.

The Notre Dame/Texas game piled up some modestly impressive ratings, drawing 3.8 million total viewers and a 1.1 rating in the all-important 18-49 age demographic. Unfortunately for Notre Dame, Alabama outscored ND by a more than two-to-one margin, pulling in 7.9 million total viewers and a 2.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic.

The two games made clear, however, that big-name college football on prime-time network television will be difficult for other programming to beat. Programming on CBS and Fox, which included reruns of Hawaii 5-0, Bullseye and 48 Hours, drew only a fraction of the viewers that the football games drew.