Should it really be any surprise that Coach Prime in Prime Time is pulling in big TV numbers?
A spotlight has been on the Colorado Buffaloes ever since Deion Sanders was announced as their head coach, and I know it is still early, but it might be the best move that the University of Colorado has ever made.
Coach Prime has led his team to a 3 and 0 start, and that’s after he lost 80% of the players that were with the Buffaloes last year. As Deion said he would do, he brought in “his own luggage,” including his star quarterback son Shedeur Sanders, and that has actually worked wonders.
Not only has it been incredibly successful for the team’s record so far this year (3-0), it’s also had an unprecedented impact on TV viewership. Coach Prime and the Buffaloes won their first two games of the year pretty convincingly, and then got in an instant-classic dogfight with their in-state rivals of Colorado State this past Saturday night.
Considering how late the game between Colorado and Colorado State was played (started after 9 PM CST and finished around 1:30 AM CST), these numbers are almost hard to believe. Front Office Sports reported that the matchup was the “5th most-watched college football game” in the history of the sport.
Their post went on to say:
“The Buffs’ comeback win drew 9.3 million viewers — shattering records for 1) ESPN late prime window viewership and 2) Most-streamed regular season game ever.”
A team that only won one game last year has been transformed into a must-watch football team in a matter of months. The only thing that really changed in that short period of time is the head coach, and Deion Sanders is clearly showing that he and his team are a force to be reckoned with.
That hasn’t stopped people from still trying to trash talk Sanders and the Colorado team, which so far has not been a great strategy for opposing teams. The Buffaloes now march into Oregon to play the Ducks this weekend, and with both teams undefeated, there’s a chance that the viewing records get broken once again…
