College volleyball set a new viewership record on Sunday, surpassing its previous record by one million viewers. The high viewership can be attributed to its strong lead-in from television's most powerful program.
The regionalized college volleyball action, which aired immediately after the NFL in most of the country, received an average rating of 0.9 and attracted 1.66 million viewers on FOX. This performance completely surpassed the previous record set just a week earlier on the Big Ten Network, which had 612,000 viewers for the Wisconsin-Nebraska match.
This telecast is likely to be the most-watched college volleyball telecast of any kind and one of the most-watched volleyball telecasts outside of the Olympic Games, including beach volleyball.
In 76% of the country, viewers were able to watch the Wisconsin-Minnesota match right after the 1 PM ET NFL game on FOX. This was especially significant in Wisconsin and Minnesota, where the local NFL team led directly into the flagship college squad. The remaining portion of the country had the Ohio State-Michigan match leading into Browns-Seahawks.
Apart from the local tie-in, the singleheader lead-in was exceptionally strong this week, with an average of 19.98 million viewers.
