BOULDER, Colorado — The national media coverage of Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes football team has been rewarded with massive ratings.
ESPN reported Tuesday that its "College GameDay" pregame show, broadcasted live from the CU Boulder campus, was watched by an average of 2.3 million viewers on Saturday. The final hour of the three-hour program averaged 3 million viewers.
ESPN said the Colorado-centric "College GameDay," held hours before the CU-CSU football game, was its best September episode of the show since 2010, as well as the third-best September episode ever.
"College GameDay" aired Saturday morning from the Leeds School of Business lawn, the first time it had been held at CU since 1996.
The long-running college football pregame show featured guest appearances Saturday from Deion "Coach Prime" Sanders, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and 98-year-old CU superfan Peggy Coppom, as well as show regulars Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso, Desmond Howard and Pat McAfee.
On the other side of the CU campus, "Big Noon Kickoff" — featuring Rob Stone, Matt Leinart, Brady Quinn, Urban Meyer, Mark Ingram II, Chris "Bear" Fallica, Tom Rinaldi, Charles Woodson and special guest Rob Gronkowski — aired live on FOX from Farrand Field.
Colorado's double-overtime victory against Colorado State, which ended in the early hours of Sunday in most of the country, drew 9.3 million viewers to make it the most-watched late-night college football game ever on ESPN, the network said.
Sanders' Colorado team did not kick off until after 10 p.m. on the East Coast and did not secure the victory until about 2:30 a.m.
Still, it was ESPN's fifth most-watched regular-season game ever on the network for any time slot. That broadcast window for ESPN college football averaged about 1.7 million viewers last year, the network said.
No. 19 Colorado's first two games under Sanders were carried by Fox, with both slotted into the network's Big Noon game. The Buffaloes' victories over TCU and Nebraska averaged about 8 million viewers for Fox.
Colorado faces No. 10 Oregon on Saturday in a game scheduled for 1:30 p.m. MT on ABC.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
College GameDay, Big Noon Kickoff stage football pregame shows in Colorado
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