UCF’s Win over Temple Scores Good Ratings on ESPN

The UCF Knights’ Thursday night victory over the Temple Owls drew a 0.8 rating and 1.19 million viewers on ESPN.

That’s a 53% jump in ratings and a 57% jump in viewership from last year’s same week time slot, but down 15% in viewership from 2016 (Oklahoma/Iowa State: 1.40M), according to SportsMediaWatch.com.

The Knights’ 52-40 win was the third-largest Thursday night audience of the season on ESPN, behind Texas Tech/TCU (1.23 million) and Northwestern/Purdue on opening night (1.74 million).

The Knights host Navy Saturday, November 10th, at a time TBA.

The game is also the third-most-watched UCF game of the season, slightly behind the September 21st win over Florida Atlantic (1.295 million), which was a Friday night game that aired on ESPN. UCF at Memphis from October 13th, which aired on ESPN2 in most of the country and ABC in the south, garnered 2.9 million viewers, although keep in mind it was split coverage with Oregon-Washington.

Thursday’s night win over the Owls was the Knight’s second-largest audience ever for a Thursday night ESPN telecast, trailing only the October 9, 2014 game vs. BYU, which the Knights won in overtime. That game drew 1.340 million viewers.