If he had it his way, Deion Sanders would be playing when his nickname suggests: Prime Time.
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During his weekly radio show on Wednesday, Colorado's head coach ripped the Pac-12's late start times and said he was glad the Buffaloes were leaving the conference.
"Thank God we're not going to be in this conference," Sanders said.
"Who makes these 8 o'clock games? That is the dumbest thing ever. It's the stupidest thing ever in life. Who wants to stay up until 8 o'clock for a dern game? What about the East Coast? Do they even care about ratings or anybody watching it?" he continued.
Coach Prime not happy to be playing in Prime Time (local) Friday night.
Who wants to tell him there will almost certainly be 10 pm ET games in the Big 12?https://t.co/vXJPUFt45Qhttps://t.co/vXJPUFt45Q
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) October 11, 2023
Of course, Sanders brings this up because Colorado plays Stanford at 10 p.m. ET Friday night. But to contend that nobody will watch because of the start time simply isn't true, if you look at Colorado's ratings this season.
The Colorado-Colorado State matchup had the same start time, finished past 2 a.m. on the East Coast and still drew 9.3 million viewers — the third-most-watched game all season and the most-watched late game on ESPN ever, according to SportsMediaWatch.
Prime Time and Co. have been a complete ratings hit this season. The Buffs have played in five of the most-watched college football games in 2023, the first being a Colorado-Oregon game that 10.03 million people tuned in for.
Below are those top 10 most-watched games, via SportsMediaWatch:
- Colorado-Oregon: 10.03 million
- Ohio State-Notre Dame: 9.98 million
- Colorado-Colorado State: 9.30 million
- Florida State-LSU: 9.17 million
- Texas-Alabama: 8.76 million
- Colorado-Nebraska: 8.73 million
- Oklahoma-Texas: 7.87 million
- Colorado-TCU: 7.26 million
- Colorado-USC: 7.24 million
- Alabama-Texas A&M: 7.23 million
When Sanders was asked what he'll do waiting around all day Friday to play, he said he'd be watching his favorite TV show.
"I'll just find (TV personality) Steve Harvey and watch it all day," he said. "That's my guy."
