It was announced on Monday that the Michigan Wolverines' Nov. 16 football contest with Michigan State will kick off at noon, meaning the Maize and Blue will play at least eight 12:00 PM ET games this year.
That number could still go up, with the kickoff time for the Nov. 23 battle at Indiana not having been decided yet.
A large reason for the increase in noon starts has been due to the FOX TV network.
They publicly expressed a desire before the year to air their biggest showdowns at 12:00 PM, and Michigan has subsequently played three of its affairs on the network, with at least two more to come (the MSU and Ohio State tilts).
U-M's eight noon starts are its most in a regular-season since 2011 (also eight), with the club having played more than six just twice since 2009.
The Nov. 16 clash against the Spartans will also be the first 12:00 PM kick between the two rivals in Ann Arbor since 2002.
Noon regular-season kickoffs since 2009:
• 2019 — 8 (at least)
• 2018 — 5
• 2017 — 6
• 2016 — 4
• 2015 — 6
• 2014 — 2
• 2013 — 3
• 2012 — 4
• 2011 — 8
• 2010 — 6
• 2009 — 7
Three of Michigan's Games Have Drawn Over Five Million TV Viewers This Season
Michigan's football program has once again been a major TV attraction for college football fans all around the country this year, according to SportsMediaWatch.com.
Per the outlet, six of the Maize and Blue’s nine games this season have been among the three highest-viewed in the nation (the Middle Tennessee State, Rutgers and Illinois contests being the lone exceptions), which is more than any other program in college football.
Three of Michigan’s affairs have placed in the top-two viewership-wise three times, with the Oct. 19 Penn State clash checking in as the most-watched college football game that weekend (6.66 million viewers), drawing 2.41 million more people than the second-most watched contest (Alabama vs. Tennessee, which attracted 4.25 million eyeballs).
Though U-M’s Oct. 26 obliteration of Notre Dame wasn’t the highest-viewed game of its weekend (it was second, with LSU’s win over Auburn coming in first), it drew the most viewers of any Wolverine football game so far this fall, with 6.75 million.
Michigan’s 10-3 triumph over Iowa on Oct. 5 collected the third-most watchers of any Wolverine clash (5.02 million), while the Sept. 21 blowout loss at Wisconsin had the fourth-most (4.73 million).
Perhaps to some people's surprise, the Maize and Blue's 38-7 blowout win at Maryland this past Saturday was the third-most viewed outing of the weekend (3.10 million people), behind Georgia's win over Florida in Jacksonville (6.98 million) and Oregon's destruction of USC in the LA Coliseum (3.43)
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