College Football on TV: Michigan State Beats Everyone

At least until the new fall schedule begins, it looks like ABC has Saturday night figured out, and as long as the network can keep running high-profile NCAA football games, the other networks are going to have a hard time mounting any kind of significant challenge to ABC's ratings dominance of the evening.

This week's Saturday Night Football game featured the Michigan State Spartans, who came into the game ranked number 5, and the Oregon Ducks, who entered the week ranked at number 7. A match-up between two Top-10 teams is virtually guaranteed impressive viewership, and this game was not an exception. ABC's broadcast drew 6.9 million total viewers and a 2.2 rating in the 18-49 age demographic.

Those numbers are slightly off from last week, however, when ABC's Alabama/Wisconsin game drew 7.9 million viewers, even though the game was up against a Notre Dame/Texas match-up on NBC.

Like last week, the ABC game was up against reruns on the other networks, so there was little in the way of competition. Still, it's hard to imagine that anything but another marquee game on another network - either NBC or Fox - will put so much as a dent in the ABC Saturday-night football machine.