A national TV audience and a primetime slot were fruitful for the MEAC/SWAC Challenge and HBCU football after a yearlong hiatus.
Per ShowBuzzDaily, North Carolina Central’s 23-14 upset win over favored Alcorn State drew an average of 1 million viewers on ESPN Saturday night, the second-highest rated game of the Week 0 college football slate.
Also read: ‘We’re still here’: MEAC coaches revel in continued dominance over SWAC rivals
For comparison, the Hawaii-UCLA, also on ESPN earlier in the day, drew 976,000 viewers and Nebraska-Illinois, a game televised on FOX, garnered 3.2 million viewers.
The 2019 game between Jackson State and Bethune-Cookman on ESPN 2 drew 350,000 viewers.
