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Fox Sports Reveals Historic News After Texas-Ohio State

Originally posted on Athlon Sports
By Kevin Matthew Borba | Last updated Sep 3, 2025 6:06 PM ET

It was no secret that the matchup between the No. 1 Texas Longhorns and No. 3 Ohio State Buckeyes was one of the most highly anticipated games in recent college football history. Both Fox's "Big Noon Kickoff" and ESPN's "College GameDay," which was celebrating Lee Corso's final show, were in attendance.

For Texas, the game marked the start of the Arch Manning era at quarterback, as he looked to avenge the team's loss to Ohio State in the College Football Playoff semifinal the previous year. For Ohio State, they also began a new era at quarterback as the No. 1 quarterback recruit in the 2024 class, Julian Sayin, was making his first career start for the defending champion Buckeyes.

Although many were hoping for offensive fireworks, the game was a defensive battle throughout, with Ohio State securing the 14-7 win.

While just about everyone around college football was talking or posting about the game, Fox Sports announced on Wednesday that it drew a record amount of viewers.

As revealed in the announcement, the game's 16.6 million viewers made it the most-watched Week 1 college football game ever.

Ratings Always Rise at NOON

FOX's BIG NOON SATURDAY scored 16,623,000 viewers for Ohio State's win over Texas

- Most-watched Week 1 CFB game on any net in history
- Third most-watched regular season CFB game ever on FOX
- Peaked at 18,569,000 viewers from 3-3:15 PM ET pic.twitter.com/P1Eg3FnjxB
— FOX Sports PR (@FOXSportsPR) September 3, 2025

The announcement also revealed that it was the third most-watched regular-season college football game in Fox's history, while peaking at nearly 19 million viewers.

To put into perspective as to how that compares to other notable games from a year ago, On3's Pete Nakos revealed it smashed the viewership of Texas' game against Georgia a year ago, and was in the ball park of Ohio State's championship game against Notre Dame.

"For context, Georgia-Texas brought in 13.19 million last year and the national title game brought in 22.1 million," wrote Nakos. "Massive number."

Arguably, the best part about the matchup is that with the 12-team College Football Playoff and a full season of football left to be played, these two teams could meet again with even more on the line.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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