Enjoy your noon kickoffs, Ohio State Buckeyes. Because based on Week 1’s massive viewership numbers, your biggest games aren’t leaving the time slot any time soon.
Per Fox Sports PR, Saturday’s 12 p.m. ET showdown between Associated Press No. 1 Ohio State (1-0) and No. 7 Texas Longhorns (0-1), a 14-7 Ohio State win, drew an audience of 16.6 million viewers, making it the most watched Week 1 college football game on record and third-most watched regular-season game on Fox.
The game peaked at 18.569M viewers.
With numbers like those, Ohio State can forget about hosting major games in prime time.
Fox, which owns primary rights for Big Ten game inventory, has built its college football audience around noon (or, more like 12:18 p.m. ET) kickoffs, and it gets priority most weeks to pick the top conference game of its choosing.
This season, Ohio State will host No. 2 Penn State Nittany Lions (1-0) on Nov. 1, which would be perfect for a night-game setting. But unless NBC, which airs Big Ten night games, somehow gets its hands on Penn State-Ohio State, the Buckeyes will likely go another season without playing another significant regular-season prime-time home game. (Apologies to Minnesota, UCLA and Rutgers — Ohio State’s other three conference home opponents in 2025.)
Ohio State fans dislike early kickoffs
The early kickoffs have become the consternation of Buckeyes fans for a myriad of reasons. Ohio Stadium is a hard place to play at any time for opponents, but a night atmosphere remains unparalleled.
It’s also somewhat symbolic. With college football’s current schedule, ESPN/ABC typically rule prime time with SEC games, which should irk Big Ten fans after the conference won the past two national championships. Why exactly is it ceding the spotlight?
But as Fox’s “Big Noon Saturday” numbers reveal, the spotlight is plenty bright during the day, too. The network’s found a winning, simple formula: 1. Put Ohio State on at noon and 2. Profit.
What’s good for Fox isn’t necessarily what Ohio State fans may want to hear, but it’s the reality they’re stuck with.
