Defending HBCU national champion North Carolina Central and up-and-coming Morgan State played in a hard-hitting, low-scoring MEAC game last Thursday on national television.
However, the TV ratings were less impressive for a contest that wasn’t decided until late in the fourth quarter.
The Eagles’ 16-10 win over the Bears only drew 27,000 viewers and registered a 0.01 rating on ESPNU in the primetime window, according to Sports Media Watch.
It was the third-lowest-rated college football game of the night, with James Madison-Marshall drawing 603,000 viewers on ESPN and Rice-Tulsa on ESPN 2 getting 179,000 television viewers in the 7 p.m. EST timeslot.
There was also competition from Amazon Prime’s weekly broadcast of Thursday Night Football featuring Jacksonville and New Orleans, which got 9.79 million viewers and received a 4.7 rating.
Also competing against college and pro football that night were the MLB playoffs that drew a combined 7 million viewers between the ALCS and NLCS.
North Carolina Central will play again on Thursday night, this time against South Carolina State at 7:30 p.m. EST on ESPNU.
But that game will be going up against the NFL and the NBA’s slate of opening week broadcasts.
