On Dec. 6, Indiana defeated Ohio State to win its first Big Ten championship in 58 years in an epic contest that, based on the numbers, captivated way more than just Hoosiers and Buckeyes’ fans.
FOX announced on Tuesday the viewership numbers for the undefeated Hoosiers’ historic 13-10 win in a battle between college football‘s top two teams, and the results were staggering. The contest went down as the most-watched Big Ten title game on record, drawing 18,332,000 viewers on FOX.
As the game went into the final minutes, however, the television audience spiked to 19,993,000 viewers between 11:00 and 11:15 p.m. ET. The window coincided with a thrilling finish that saw Ohio State nearly tie the game with a 15-play drive that ended with kicker Jayden Fielding missing a 27-yard field goal with 2:48 to play to all but swing the game in Indiana’s favor.
Another notable nugget on the impressive TV turnout is the game was also the most-watched CFB telecast of Championship Weekend on any network, giving FOX the season’s three most-watched CFB games up to that point in the season. The other two were Ohio State vs. Michigan and Ohio State vs. Texas.
For those that tuned in, the memorable matchup certainly lived up to the hype. For Indiana, the win not only flipped the program into the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff but it also gave quarterback Fernando Mendoza an edge over Ohio State QB Julian Sayin, and a chance to live up to his nickname, as the favorite to win the Heisman Trophy on Dec. 13.
If the metrics from the big game are any indication, it’s likely both teams will garner healthy viewership numbers when they next take the field in the CFP following their first-round byes.
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