Odds on Which Will Be Higher: Lowest-Rated NFL Thursday Night Football Game or Highest-Rated Thursday Night NCAAF Game
By Robert Duff in NFL Football
Updated: March 24, 2020 at 10:59 am EDTPublished:
- See prop wagers on 2019 Thursday Night Football games
- Will the highest-rated Thursday NCAAF game draw more viewers than the lowest-rated Thursday NFL game?
- Will any Thursday night college game pull a higher rating than a Thursday Night NFL game in the same week?
How do you spend your Thursday nights in the fall? Some people are NFL fans, while others cotton to the college brand of football.
Sportsbooks are wondering if the mighty NFL can be outdone on Thursday nights by an NCAAF game, offering a pair of head-to-head prop wagers on Thursday football during the 2019 season.
Is the NFL still king of the couch potatoes?
NCAAF vs NFL Thursday Night Football Odds
| What Will Be Higher Rated? | Odds |
|---|---|
| Lowest-Rated Thursday NFL Game | -2500 |
| Highest-Rated Thursday NCAA Game | +1000 |
Odds as of 07/30/19.
Sure, you can argue from a pure entertainment standpoint that a well-played college football game is much more enjoyable to watch then a sloppy NFL game, especially a late-season tilt between two teams going nowhere in the standings.
There will always be a constituency of people who are adamant that they won’t watch the pro game at all, believing the college brand of football to be more pure. These are the same people who will tell you time and again that if sports sections devoted more time and space to local sports instead of the pro game, newspapers would be flourishing.
Lowest-Rated 2018 Thursday Night NFL Games
| Game | Rating | Total Viewers |
|---|---|---|
| Baltimore Ravens-Cincinnati Bengals | 4.2 | 7.02 million |
| New York Giants-Cleveland Browns | 5.2 | 8.3 million |
| Denver Broncos-Arizona Cardinals | 5.6 | 9.1 million |
| Jacksonville Jaguars-Tennessee Titans | 6.7 | 10.76 million |
| Oakland Raiders-San Francisco 49ers | 6.8 | 11.06 million |
Well, we’re here to tell you that both of these arguments hold water about as well as the levies did in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
Sure, a lot of folks watch college football. But just about all folks watch the NFL. They even tune in for bad NFL games.
The worst viewership for a Thursday Night NFL game was an early-season matchup between the Baltimore Ravens and Cincinnati Bengals. It drew a 4.2 share and 7.02 million eyeballs, roughly the population of Houston, Texas.
The most-watched Thursday NCAA football was a clash between two Big Ten Rivals, the Northwestern Wildcats and Purdue Boilermakers. It grabbed a 1.0 ratings share and was watched by 1.741 million viewers, or about the population of Phoenix, Arizona.
The NCAA doesn’t exactly reserve Thursdays for its A-list games. It’s generally MAC and second-tier ACC games.
Pick: Lowest-Rated Thursday NFL Game (-2500)
Will Any Thursday NCAAF Game Draw Better Ratings Than TNF Game in the Same Week?
| Outcome | Odds |
|---|---|
| Yes | +1500 |
| No | -3000 |
Here’s another argument that’s often put forward by college football fans – could the best NCAA team beat the worst NFL team? In other words, would the Alabama Crimson Tide defeat the Arizona Cardinals?
Well, you know what every player on the Cardinals is that only a select number of Crimson Tide players will end up? Professional football players, that’s what. And in the best football league on the planet, to boot.
Thursday Night Football ratings on WMAQ (Chicago NBC affiliate) were up 14% YoY. We’ll see a lot of this across all stations this year. May not be best ever stats, but 2018 ratings (overall) will be better than 2017. #FootballIsBack #TV #NBC #NFL
— John From Wrigleyville (JFW) (@johnfromwrigley) September 7, 2018
Even the worst player in the NFL today is going to be better than 90 percent of those playing NCAA ball.
Highest-Rated 2018 Thursday Night NFL Games
| Game | Rating | Total Viewers |
|---|---|---|
| Northwestern-Purdue | 1.0 | 1.741 million |
| TCU-Texas Tech | 0.8 | 1.233 million |
| Temple-UCF | 0.8 | 1.191 million |
| Ole Miss-Mississippi State | 0.57 | 1.108 million |
| Miami (Fla)-North Carolina | 0.6 | 1.007 million |
People want to see the best in the world in action. That’s why the top-rated NCAAÂ football game played on a Thursday last season drew an audience of 5.279 million fewer viewers than the least-watched NFL game on the same day of the week.
Pick: No (-3000)
Sports Writer
An industry veteran, Bob literally taught the course on the history of sports at Elder College. He has worked as a Sports Columnist for Postmedia, appeared as a guest on several radio stations, was the Vice President of the Society For International Hockey Research in Ontario, and written 25 books.
