HOUSTON — A pair of Saturday NFL games drew a larger viewing audience than college football for the rollout of the sport's 12-team playoff.
The playoff game between SMU and Penn State averaged 6.4 million viewers on TNT networks, compared with the Texans-Chiefs game on NBC, which averaged 15.5 million viewers.
Later, Clemson-Texas drew 8.6 million viewers on TNT, compared with 15.4 million for Steelers-Ravens on Fox.
ESPN, ABC and others aired the other two college games — Indiana-Notre Dame (13.4 million) on Friday night and Tennessee-Ohio State (14.3 million) on Saturday night. There were no competing NFL games.
The overall average of 10.6 million viewers was higher than all but four college games this season.
ABC Action News reporter Michael Paluska heads to Weedon Island, which has a rich history that dates back more than 12,000 years. During that time, it was home to Indigenous populations, a movie studio, an airport, a safe haven for bootleggers during prohibition, and so much more. Today, the preserve protects this wide diversity of natural and cultural resources for current and future generations.
