Missouri’s upset bid against two-time defending national champion and still undefeated Georgia fell short last week after the Tigers were leading early in the fourth quarter of a game televised nationally by CBS in its marquee Saturday afternoon time slot.
But the combination of their competitive performance in a 30-21 loss and TV scheduling complexities has landed Mizzou a return engagement in CBS’ 2:30 p.m. (ºüÀêÊÓƵ time) window for Southeastern Conference games, when it will entertain Tennessee this week. Both teams are 7-2 and MU is 14th this week in the playoff standings, one spot behind the Volunteers.
CBS and ESPN outlets share the SEC package, with CBS having the first choice each week. But this time ESPN winds up with the big SEC game of the day, No. 9 Mississippi at No. 2 Georgia (playoff rankings), at 6 p.m., because CBS can show each team a maximum of five times in the regular season. The network will reach that limit with Georgia next week when it televises the Bulldogs’ game with Tennessee — which it would have been unable to show had it carried their game this Saturday.
People are also reading…
The Tigers broke nearly a five-year drought in playing in the 2:30 game last week, although they have been on CBS (KMOV, Channel 4 locally) in less high-profile slots in recent years — including multiple times against Arkansas on the day after Thanksgiving. But they never have been featured like they are being now. This Saturday will mark just the sixth time MU will be in CBS’ primary spot and will be the first instance in which the Tigers have been there in back-to-back weeks.
And unlike for the Georgia game, the Tigers this time really will be CBS’ top contest. Last week, for the only time all season, CBS also had a prime-time Saturday SEC game (Louisiana State-Alabama) and sent its lead broadcast team there. But this week that crew is to be in Columbia — fronted by play-by-play announcer Brad Nessler, analyst Gary Danielson and reporter Jenny Dell.
The MU-Georgia game drew a big rating in ºüÀêÊÓƵ, as viewership-tracking service Nielsen said 10.3% of the market tuned in to the telecast locally on Channel 4. That’s close to the highest-rated Cardinals game this year (10.6), and the Redbirds averaged a 5.2 rating for the 150 games shown on local rightsholder Bally Sports Midwest. Of course they play nearly every day for six months and have many midweek afternoon starting times, whereas MU football contests on a major over-the-air network in a preferential slot are rarities.
CBS officials said the MU-Georgia telecast averaged nearly 7 million viewers nationally, the most-watched game between those teams on record, with the audience peaking at 8.607 million. The network televised a tripleheader that day (Ohio State-Rutgers was the opener) and the games combined for nearly 20 million viewers, which CBS says is the biggest college football audience for any network on one day this season.