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Prime time showdowns not created equally
Published: 9/13/2011 7:16 PM
Last Modified: 9/13/2011 7:16 PM

In case you haven't heard, the Oklahoma-Florida State game this weekend is a pretty big deal.

No. 1 vs. No. 5. Prime time coverage on ABC. ESPN College Gameday on site.

The eyes of the nation will be on Tallahassee this weekend. Or will they?

College football is obviously a big deal, and it's especially big here where Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Tulsa dominate the market.

But for those who might wonder what sport dominates the national landscape, the NFL made another emphatic statement this weekend.

The six highest rated programs in the country last week were NFL related. The NFL's Thursday night opener between New Orleans and Green Bay was No. 1, drawing 27 million viewers. NBC's Sunday night matchup between Dallas and the New York Jets had more than 25 million viewers.

The most watched college game of the weekend -- also the most watched cable program of the week -- was Notre Dame at Michigan on Saturday night with 7.5 million viewers.

OU-FSU obviously has a chance to rival that, which does provide great national exposure for the program -- especially if you win.

So what about Oklahoma State's Thursday showdown with Arizona? Well, the benefit of that game switch seems less sure.

Although OSU had the college stage to itself Thursday, the game wasn't one of the top 20 rated cable programs of the week according to Zap2it.com, a site that compiles the weekly Nielsen ratings.

That means less than 4.1 million viewers tuned into the game. Or to be more brutally honest, more people watched two different episodes of Pawn Stars, two different episodes of Storage Wars and one episode of American Pickers last week than watched the Cowboys on Thursday night.

In fact, Big Brother, The Big Bang Theory, Jersey Shore and Burn Notice all beat OSU head-to-head about as badly as the Cowboys thrashed Arizona -- not to mention the NFL season opener.

But as the old saying goes, there's no such thing as bad publicity -- as long as they spell your name right.

Just remember, all prime time showdowns are not created equal. And work stoppage or not, the NFL still rules.

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Tulsa World Sports Editor Michael Peters has nearly 20 years of daily newspaper experience. A 1993 graduate of Texas A&M, he worked at papers in Bryan-College Station, Texas, Beaumont, Texas, and Galveston, Texas, before joining the Houston Chronicle as High School Sports Editor in 2008. While in Houston, he coordinated coverage of the 2008 Texas Class 5A state football championships and the 2011 NCAA Men's Final Four.

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