Fox ‘Big Noon’ versus ABC primetime will get its most interesting data point yet this weekend
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College football fans are not shy about their opinions and preferences when it comes to kickoff times. The SEC game of the week on CBS at 3:30 p.m. ET was a college football institution… until it wasn’t. ESPN has long steered most of its best games to primetime on ABC.
But nobody has disrupted the college football media ecosystem as much as Fox with its Big Noon game, which aims to schedule as many top games as possible in the noon ET window.
While some bigger games have historically filled this window, such as Ohio State vs. Michigan and Oklahoma vs. Texas, networks and schools have traditionally avoided putting marquee games at noon.
Enter Fox, which has challenged this dynamic, mostly out of necessity after years of losing the college football ratings war to ABC and CBS.
“We were putting our best CFB games on in primetime, and we were getting beaten pretty badly,” said Fox President, Insights and Analytics Mike Mulvihill two years ago. “The reality is ABC has owned that real estate for a long time, and we weren’t having much success going head-to-head. CBS had the top SEC game of the week at 3:30 for probably 30 years by the time we came up with Big Noon Saturday. There was just a need to do something different. We had to recognize we couldn’t keep doing the same thing and expect to have any kind of success.”
A few years back, Fox started experimenting with putting its larger games at noon. Ratings improved, and for better or worse, it’s been a staple since. Between 2021 and 2023, Fox’s Big Noon window was the most-watched, validating the unique scheduling strategy.
The tide has since shifted, however, with the loss of Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC, a move that simultaneously deflated Fox’s scheduling power while bolstering ABC and ESPN. On their way out the door, Oklahoma even openly cited their dislike for 11 a.m. CT/noon ET games as a reason for leaving the Big 12.
Additionally, CBS losing the SEC game of the week to ABC has seen the Disney-owned network blow past Fox’s Big Noon window, not only with its primetime game but also its mid-afternoon game over the past two seasons. Fox’s Big Noon now seems stuck as the bronze medalist, averaging 6.3 million weekly viewers in 2025, while ABC’s 3:30 p.m. ET game clocked 7.8 million viewers and the primetime window 8 million.
It seems unlikely that this pecking order will change until there is a new round of TV media rights deals or another round of conference realignment.
But much of the rise and fall of Fox’s Big Noon ties to the schedule each network can put out in those windows. What role, if any, does the actual window itself play into the ratings?
We do know that more people watch college football in the afternoon and evening than in the noon window. However, competition is also fiercer, with more games across more networks. Noon has fewer people up and watching college football, but Fox capitalized on the fact that almost no major games were being played at this time, so the network could capture a larger share of viewership by giving people a primetime-level contest.
Fox put a bigger fish in a smaller pond, and it worked.
There is no real way to A/B test which scheduling approach actually is optimal for a specific game. You can’t play the exact same game in different windows while keeping all variables the same. However, this Saturday gives us a great opportunity to compare.
Oklahoma travels to Michigan and will play on Fox at noon. Last year, the two teams played on ABC in primetime. Ohio State travels to Texas to play at 7:30 p.m. ET on ABC. Last year, the two teams played on Fox at noon.
Sometime next week, we’ll get viewership for both games, with both years’ versions sharing similar importance. So, we’ll get a pretty clear picture of whether either network or window has more upside.
Ohio State played Texas in Week 1 last season, rather than Week 2, but it’s a similar story. Both teams are ranked in the top four, and it’s the obvious game of the week. Last year’s contest was a little light on action, but remained competitive all the way to the end. In a noon window with little competition (Tennessee vs. Syracuse on ESPN was the only other notable game at the time), the game drew 16.6 million viewers according to Nielsen, making it the second-most-watched regular-season game of the year.
Competition is a bit stiffer this year in primetime as CBS is airing Houston vs. Oregon State, NBC is airing Iowa vs. Iowa State, and ESPN is airing Tennessee vs. Georgia Tech. More viable alternatives are available, but more people will be watching overall during this time.
Can ABC’s primetime window beat 16.6 million?
Michigan vs. Oklahoma is likewise a similar story to last season. This year’s game takes place the same week, with both teams coming in 1-0. Michigan is unranked after winning (kind of) versus Western Michigan, and while you could argue that detracts from the game on paper (Michigan was ranked last season), the amount of interest in the Wolverines on the heels of that controversial finish is likely to help viewership, as casual fans are more invested in some type of karmic reckoning. Plus, at the end of the day, brands matter in college football.
Last year’s primetime game drew 9.67 million viewers and faced marginal competition from Boston College vs. Michigan State on NBC, Army vs. Kansas State on ESPN, and Mississippi State vs. Arizona State on ESPN2. This year, UM-OU goes against Arizona State-Texas A&M on ABC and Oregon-Oklahoma State on ESPN. Last year’s showdown was a bit light on action, as many Bryce Underwood-quarterbacked games tend to be, but it stayed a one-score game deep into the fourth quarter.
Can the move from primetime to Big Noon see this year’s matchup beat last year’s 9.67 million viewers?
I’ve asked around and got mixed answers on whether either game will benefit from the timeslot and network changes. Either way, I think both networks and conferences are motivated to schedule more of these SEC vs. Big Ten matchups, since both games were among the top-13 regular-season games watched last season and will likely do so again this year.
This should be one of the most informative data points we’ve seen for measuring the viewership impact of moving a specific game between time slots since the new Fox noon, ABC primetime paradigm began.
We just have to hope a blowout doesn’t derail the experiment.
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