It was a rare college football week where multiple HBCU football games were not buried among the lineup of ESPN+ streaming options served up by the broadcast partner for the major Black conferences.
Last Thursday, North Carolina Central made a second consecutive appearance on ESPNU for its Thursday night game against South Carolina State.
That MEAC midweek clash averaged a disappointing 25,000 viewers, down from the 27,000 for the North Carolina Central-Morgan State game on the same network, according to Nielsen ratings from Sports Media Watch.
Two days later, ESPNU televised Florida A&M’s homecoming game versus Prairie View. That contest — played in the 4 p.m. Saturday EST window –averaged 28,000 viewers.
The recent low audience figures for HBCU games televised on ESPNU during the 2023 season continued a noticeable pattern of underperformance compared to those shown elsewhere.
It is a stark contrast compared to the reports that overall viewership of college football is up this season thanks in large part to traditional Power Five teams in national championship contention and the intrigue of former Jackson State coach Deion Sanders at Colorado.
The seven HBCU football games broadcast on ESPNU through the first nine weeks of the regular season so far have averaged 34,000 viewers. The best performing of the bunch was a game between Fort Valley State and Tuskegee — a pair of Division II schools — drew 67,000 viewers.
HBCU football games saw more eyeballs away from ESPNU
HBCU football games not relegated to ESPNU did markedly better regardless of timeslot or day of the week. There have been seven games televised on ABC, Big Ten Network, CNBC (yes, there was a game on a business channel), ESPN, ESPN 2, and NFL Network.
Those broadcasts were seen by a total of 3.1 million people and averaged 451,142 viewers. To decouple the figures, the most-watched broadcast was the 1.5 million who saw Tennessee State play at Notre Dame on NBC. The second and third most-viewed games featured the Orange Blossom Classic on ESPN (438,000 viewers) and the MEAC/SWAC Challenge on ABC (922,000 viewers).
Other individual games that did relatively well were Grambling State-Hampton on NFL Network (109,000 viewers), Benedict College-Fort Valley State on ESPN (98,000 viewers), and Howard-Northwestern on Big Ten Network (71,000 viewers). Despite the Albany State-Fort Valley State game being buried on CNBC, a non-sports network, it drew 20,000 viewers.
Though not great by any measurement, it performed nearly as well as HBCU games televised on ESPNU.
The argument to explain away the shortcomings of ESPNU is that many games, particularly Thursday night contests, are often up against the NFL, NBA, and even FBS games. Also, ESPNU isn’t a channel that is widely available without an expanded cable or streaming package upgrade.
But that doesn’t negate HBCU football games shown on other networks, or ESPN and ESPN 2, were seen by more people regardless of the circumstances.
While HBCU conferences will have over 100 combined football games televised across ESPN linear and digital platforms this season that provide the coveted exposure, what is exposure if few are exposed?
