Ohio State-Michigan, NFL, U.S.-England — a massive Thanksgiving ratings recipe: Sports on

The biggest shocker in Columbus on Saturday will be if Michigan–Ohio State isn’t the largest TV audience of the college football regular season.

The No. 2 Buckeyes host the No. 3 Wolverines at noon on Fox, and with a CFP berth on the line for two programs with enormous national profiles. It’s a reasonable expectation that the game should top the 13 million viewers for Tennessee-Georgia from Week 10 that’s the current season-best viewership.

Despite their rankings, both Ohio State and Michigan seem extremely mortal after struggling with lesser opponents this past weekend. Will that dampen viewership? Probably not, unless it’s quickly evident the game is going to be a blowout by either school.

Last year’s game in Ann Arbor — UM’s 42-27 upset to break a string of eight losses to its archrival — averaged 15.83 million viewers for the noon kickoff on Fox. That was The Game’s best TV audience since 16.84 million viewers watched on ABC in 2016, when Ohio State won in double overtime. ESPN later said that game actually topped 17 million with additional Nielsen and digital measurements.

The best viewership on record in the game’s history is 21 million in 2006, when No. 1 OSU won 42-39 in Columbus. It was the first time they’d played ranked first and second. That also was before Nielsen tracked out-of-home viewership, so the actual audience could have been a bit bigger.

Although it’s an iconic rivalry that’s always going to draw good viewership, Michigan’s victory in 2021 may have breathed needed new life into what had settled into a one-sided affair for most of the 21st century. The Wolverines hadn’t won since 2011, and it was only their fourth win in the series since 2000.

The Ohio State-Michigan game has aired every year on TV since 1967, with the Buckeyes having the win-loss edge since then. They’ve played since Michigan won the inaugural meeting, 34-0, on Oct. 16, 1897, and the Wolverines lead the all-time series, 59-51-6.

There was no game in 2020 because of the pandemic, and its return last season was clearly welcomed by fans watching on TV in big numbers. The game averaged 12.42 million viewers in the pre-pandemic 2019 season.

Here are the audiences for the past six Ohio State-Michigan games:

Last year’s OSU-UM game had a larger audience than all of the conference championship games and every bowl except the Rose Bowl, the Cotton and Orange bowls (both College Football Playoff semifinal games) and the national title game, per Sports Media Watch’s database.

What will we see viewership-wise this year? A lot of factors will affect the final audience average.

For the first time since 2006, both teams come into Ohio Stadium undefeated, and it’s the second straight year and 13th time overall they’ve played while both are ranked in the top five of the AP poll. The Buckeyes are coming off a squeaker at Maryland while Michigan labored to beat visiting Illinois. Those games, both on ABC back to back last Saturday, averaged 6.59 million and 5.47 million viewers, respectively. Those were the top college football audiences last week.

As long as the score remains relatively close on Saturday, the audience will stick with the broadcast. Blowouts tend to leak viewership as the game drags on and any excitement vanishes.

Obviously, the long rivalry and history are a huge factor. Almost equally so, especially to draw in casual fans or fans of other schools, is what’s on the line — a shot at the conference title and the College Football Playoff.

Also affecting audience totals are competition on other channels. ESPN will have No. 1 Georgia playing unranked Georgia Tech at noon while No. 9 Clemson at South Carolina is on ABC. Two World Cup matches will be underway on FS1 during The Game (France-Denmark, 11 a.m.; Argentina-Mexico, 2 p.m.), but those seem unlikely to siphon too much OSU-UM audience.

Storylines within the game itself also help drive viewership. On Saturday, the obvious conversations will be around Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud and his coterie of talented wide receivers versus Michigan’s stout defense, while the Buckeyes’ defense has to contend with UM’s powerful running game led by Blake Corum, who suffered a leg injury last week.

Lastly, Saturday is part of a long holiday weekend, with millions of Americans engaging in beloved traditions such as tuning out arguing drunk relatives while horking down a sprawling Thanksgiving spread (and then sneaking leftovers for days), getting angry while trying to buy a Samsung TV in a crowded Target on Black Friday, getting angrier while untangling Clark Griswold-like Christmas tree lights outside in the cold, getting even more angry at inflationary Christmas tree prices, and then watching a bunch of football on the couch while poorer and fatter.

Or maybe that’s just me?  ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, the game’s TV viewership will also reinforce that college football on U.S. television continues to be the biggest draw after the NFL, and the sport is led in audience largely by the SEC and Big Ten. Every week of the 2022 college football season has been led in viewership by games from one of the two conferences. Saturday will likely see both of them atop the weekly eyeball tallies again.

What do I think Saturday’s viewership will be? My mind has changed several times, and my current thinking is 16 million.

Jon Lewis — publisher of Sports Media Watch, which has tracked and analyzed live sports viewership since 2006 — said Saturday’s game should have 2022’s best regular-season viewership.

“I would say it’s a very safe bet given both teams are undefeated,” he said. “The game is its own thing. In a bad season, this matchup will do well.”

He predicted around 16 million with the potential for up to 18 million if it’s a thriller.

“It’ll be a tremendous number. It’ll do quite well if it’s close. It’s too good of a matchup,” Lewis said, noting that Fox Sports is poised for a great week because it has OSU-UM, a good Thanksgiving NFL game (Giants-Cowboys), and two U.S. men’s national team World Cup matches.

“Fox has the rising tide of all these events,” he said. “It’ll be a big week for Fox.”

Saturday’s showdown likely won’t reach the 2006 number because that was a different era of television consumption and technology, and also because the game had wider implications — there was no conference championship game in those days and no playoff system.

“That was a special event,” Lewis said.

This year’s expected high viewership will be part of a positive trend for the sport as the pandemic’s effects further recede — but are still complicated by the consumer-preference trends causing chaos within the TV industry.

“It’s been a good year. It’s difficult to gauge what is good and what isn’t (for college football on TV) after the past few years,” Lewis said. “It’s definitely a lot healthier than the last two years.”

And with the addition of Nielsen audience tracking at bars and restaurants and hotels, etc., this year’s overall viewership will likely look better than pre-pandemic 2019 when the totals are number-crunched later this year.

Saturday’s other historic rivalry game, but one unlikely to draw an especially huge audience, is the Iron Bowl between No. 8 Alabama and unranked Auburn at the Crimson Tide’s Bryant-Denny Stadium. It kicks off at 3:30 p.m. on CBS.

The 2021 Iron Bowl averaged 10.36 million viewers for its mid-afternoon kickoff on CBS, thanks to it being a four-overtime game won by No. 3 Alabama (which later went back to No. 1 before losing to Georgia in the national title game on Jan. 10).

In prime time on Saturday is another rivalry game likely to get some viewership when No. 7 USC hosts No. 18 Notre Dame at 7:30 p.m. on ABC.

On Thanksgiving evening, Mississippi State and No. 14 Ole Miss play their annual Egg Bowl rivalry game at 7 p.m. on ESPN. Ole Miss, ranked No. 9 a year ago, won the last Egg Bowl, 31-21, in 2021. The broadcast averaged 2.06 million viewers on ESPN.

GO DEEPER

Staples’ still important Saturday thought: Michigan win over Ohio State is best for Big Ten

NFL: While meaningful college football rivalry games should make for a fun TV Saturday, the nation’s most powerful sports property — the National Football League — will dominate the airwaves on Thursday with its annual tripleheader of Thanksgiving games.

The schedule:

In 2021, the Raiders’ overtime win over the Cowboys in the mid-afternoon game delivered 40.8 million viewers, the most for an NFL regular-season game since a record 41.47 million watched a Giants-49ers game in December 1990.

The old Thanksgiving viewership record had been…