South Carolina State will meet Jackson State once again in Atlanta.
While Saturday’s meeting will begin the HBCU football season instead of ending it and have fewer stakes on the line than the Celebration Bowl in 2021, the matchup does feature a commonality.
The MEAC/SWAC Challenge will be televised nationally on ABC.
“It’s fun,” longtime head SC State head coach Buddy Pough told the media recently. “We get a chance to play on ABC. We’ll be one of the only schools playing. All the colleges in the HBCU will be watching. All the ingredients of what you want are there. We should have a good viewership.”
South Carolina State’s 31-10 upset win over Jackson State in the sixth installment of the MEAC-SWAC bowl drew 2.5 million viewers and featured a 1.6 overnight rating on ABC, according to Show Buzz Daily.
It was the third most-watched game of the day across ABC and ESPN that day.
Alabama State’s 23-13 win over Howard in the 2022 MEAC/SWAC Challenge 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, per Sports Media Watch.
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 five hours.
In 2021, 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 slat, per ShowBuzzDaily.
The 2019 game between Jackson State and Bethune-Cookman on ESPN 2 drew 350,000 viewers.
