Colorado-Colorado State game did bonkers viewership numbers for ESPN
If it seems that ESPN and other big-brand sports media is pushing Deion "Coach Prime" Sanders and his Colorado Buffaloes squad down the average college football fan's throats, it's because that's the truth.
Both ESPN and Fox Sports have had Coach Prime "mania" over the first three weeks of the college football season, but there's a reason for that.
Love him or hate him, Coach Prime brings in the eyeballs. Much of that is because his brash, overly-cocky yet real personality has drawn him a ton of fans who are amazed to see that he's gotten Colorado off to a 3-0 start after winning just one game last season.
There's another segment of fans who believe Prime is all hype and the way he essentially pushed out many of last season's players in favor of his "Louis Luggage" was brash and wrong.
Either way, people are tuning in.
ESPN released the viewership numbers for the late-night game and they were staggering. A total of 9.3M viewers tuned in for the game, which makes it the fifth most watched college football game on ESPN ever.
The game, which went into double overtime, went past 2 A.M. EST, so one has to wonder how many of those viewers were "asleep at the wheel".
There was no doubting the excitement of the contest for those that were awake and tuned in, though.
Quarterback Shedeur Sanders — Deion's son — led the Buffaloes to a fourth-quarter comeback that culminated in a touchdown and two-point conversion drive that began on Colorado's own two yard line.
Sanders then threw two touchdowns in overtime to give the Buffs the win over their in-state rival.
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