Nobody Draws Like Notre Dame

Sure, you know Notre Dame is a hit with NBC, which speeds mega bucks to have the rights on televising all Irish home games. And you certainly must be aware of the national scope or the Notre Dame fan base. But do you ever wonder where most of those fans are?

We can’t tell you that for certain, although figure the East probably can claim the most support. But we can tell you that Saturday’s victory over Penn State was the highest rated for an Irish home opener in eight years, when they played Michigan.

Viewers for the Penn State game were up 12 percent over last year’s home opener against Michigan State.

The top rated markets were No. 1 Pittsburgh; No. 2 Philadelphia; No. 3 Dayton, Ohio; No. 4 West Palm Beach, Fla.; No. 5 Tampa; No. 6 Cleveland; No. 7 Fort Myers, Fla. and Las Vegas; No. 9 Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Jacksonville and Buffalo.

Notre Dame’s wide spread fan base explains the wide variety of license plates at Saturday’s game. The ones we saw included Pennsylvania (this car had Notre Dame decals, so Penn State couldn’t take credit), North Carolina, Minnesota, Florida and Texas.

Because Saturday’s Michigan game will have more major national implications, ratings could really soar.