The annual MEAC/SWAC Challenge, which featured several weather stoppages and did not end until the wee hours of the morning, was not favorable for the game’s television ratings.
Per Sports Media Watch, Alabama State’s 23-13 win over Howard drew an average of 485,000 viewers and a 0.26 TV rating on ESPN Saturday night, one of the lowest-rated contests on the Week 0 college slate. The game started on ESPN and later shifted to ESPNU for scheduled boxing programming after an extended weather delay that resulted in the contest being called after more than 5 hours.
For comparison, last season’s Alcorn State-North Carolina Central game — also on ESPN — drew 1 million viewers and a 0.60 rating. The 2019 game between Jackson State and Bethune-Cookman on ESPN 2 drew 350,000 viewers.
The highest-rated game of the day was Saturday’s Nebraska-Northwestern game from Dublin, Ireland, which averaged a 2.5 rating and 4.42 million viewers on FOX.
Ranking a distant second for Saturday games was the Stephen F. Austin-Jacksonville State FCS Kickoff on ESPN, which averaged drew 541,000 viewers. The UConn-Utah State game on FS1 had 517,000 viewers and Wyoming-Illinois on Big Ten Network captured 512,000 viewers.
