Indiana Football TV Viewership Hasn’t Risen Yet Despite On-Field Success

National TV viewers haven’t yet climbed on the Indiana bandwagon, but high-profile games to come should help.

Todd Golden | Oct 10, 2024

Big Ten Network sideline reporter Drea Avent interviews Indiana Hoosiers head coach Curt Cignetti after the game against the UCLA Bruins at Rose Bowl. / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

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Indiana Hoosiers

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Indiana’s football team is off to a 6-0 start and a No. 18 ranking in the Associated Press poll. The Hoosiers’ best start since 1967 has captured the imagination of Indiana fans who dream of Big Ten and College Football Playoff contention.

Despite heavy interest within the Indiana community, the Hoosiers’ exploits have mostly been under the radar as far as national observers are concerned – and that’s reflected in the TV numbers.

Sports Media Watch tracks viewership for most nationally televised college football games. In its compilation of the Week 6 games, it included data from all games except the ones televised on ACC Network and SEC Network.

According to its data, which it says is sourced from Programming Insider and Sports Business Journal, the Indiana-Northwestern game on Big Ten Network drew fewer viewers than any other Power Four conference game it tracked.

The game drew 439,000 viewers on Big Ten Network. Only six games had fewer viewers among 31 games it tracked.

For comparison purposes, the top-rated Week 6 game was Tennessee-Arkansas, which had 5.29 million viewers. That was a prime-time game, which isn’t a completely fair comparison.

However, the second-rated game, Auburn-Georgia, drew 4.93 million viewers in the same 3:30 p.m. ET time slot as the Indiana-Northwestern game.

Indiana’s viewership numbers dropped from its Week 5 game against Maryland, when the Hoosiers and Terrapins drew 547,000 viewers on Big Ten Network in the Noon time slot.

The highest viewership Indiana received in 2024 was for its Week 3 game at UCLA. That game drew 1.29 million viewers. It was a 7:30 p.m. game televised on NBC, so the increase in numbers can be attributed to both factors. However, it’s also the least-viewed game among NBC’s 7:30 p.m. prime-time games this season.

Indiana’s other games – a Week 1 game against Florida International, a Week 2 Friday game against Western Illinois and a Week 4 game against Charlotte had low viewership.

Indiana’s games against FIU and Charlotte were part of a split regional style telecast on Big Ten Network. So the numbers that were reported – 307,000 for FIU and 314,000 for Charlotte – are actually the combined numbers for the two games that shared the same time slot.

Indiana’s Week 2 Friday game against Western Illinois only drew 142,000 on a night the Hoosiers had Big Ten Network to themselves.

Indiana’s viewership numbers do require proper context.

All but one of the games were on Big Ten Network, which does not have the same reach as other national networks do. Big Ten Network is usually carried on cable and satellite systems within the Big Ten geographic footprint, but it’s not guaranteed outside of it.

Also, Indiana is just now starting to gain notice from casual fans. Indiana football has traditionally not been a big draw for national audiences. It also hasn’t helped Indiana that none of the teams it has played outside of UCLA is a big television draw.

Indiana will get a chance to get better viewership numbers when it hosts Nebraska on Oct. 19. That game will be Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff broadcast, which gets heavier promotion than other games.

Indiana will also play higher-profile teams in the second half of the season such as Washington, Michigan and Ohio State, so that should also provide a boost to the Hoosiers’ viewership. If Indiana continues to win, that will also obviously help.

In a general sense, the viewership numbers do confirm a tenet that Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti has held dear. The top seven college football broadcasts from Week 6 were all on over-the-air networks. When the Big Ten signed new TV deals in 2023, Petitti made it clear that he wanted the Big Ten to be on over-the-air TV. The Big Ten has games televised on Fox, CBS and NBC.

Only one game this season – Florida State-Georgia Tech, which was televised by ESPN from Ireland without competition in the early Week 0 window – made it into the weekly top five from a cable channel. (Week 0 is combined with Week 1 in Sports Media Watch rankings.)

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