If the Apple Cup is on its way out after the 2028 game, Sunday’s edition at least went down in front of a huge audience.
NBC Sports said Washington State and Washington averaged 5.5 million viewers for the Huskies’ 24-10 win in the 118th meeting between the rivals. The game aired on NBC and streamed on Peacock.
That made it NBC Sports’ most-watched afternoon Big Ten game since the package launched in 2023, and it ranked as the third-most watched game of the week.
For Apple Cup context, that 5.5 million figure stands as one of the biggest audiences for the rivalry in the last 12 years. It trails only the 2023 matchup, which drew 5.85 million viewers on FOX. That game was helped by the Ohio State-Michigan matchup that aired right before it on FOX and was the third most-watched college game in the nation that weekend, according to Sports Media Watch.
Sunday’s number also stacks up well against several marquee regular-season games from 2025. Indiana-Oregon averaged 5.59 million viewers on CBS, while Oklahoma-Tennessee drew 4.81 million on ABC and USC-Notre Dame pulled 4.64 million on NBC.
The Apple Cup finished as the No. 3 most-watched college football game of the week, behind Wisconsin-Notre Dame at 7.4 million and Clemson-LSU at 5.8 million. That’s a strong showing for a Sunday afternoon game, especially with the two games ahead of it drawing the biggest attention in primetime windows.
It also outdrew several Week 1 matchups, including Boise State-Oregon at 4.8 million, Ole Miss-Louisville at 4.7 million, Baylor-Auburn at 4.2 million, Michigan-Western Michigan at 4.1 million, Alabama-East Carolina at 3.8 million and Colorado-Georgia Tech at 3.7 million.
NBC pushed for the Apple Cup to move from Saturday to Sunday so it could benefit from a national audience on a day without NFL games and with only two other college games on the schedule. One of those was Notre Dame-Wisconsin, which followed the Apple Cup on NBC and was itself a major draw.
By comparison, last year’s Apple Cup - played on a Saturday with a full slate of games - drew 1.7 million viewers on CBS.
Other recent WSU audience numbers include the 2024 Holiday Bowl against Syracuse, which averaged 2.98 million viewers, and the 2023 home win over Wisconsin, which drew 2.23 million.
The biggest TV audience in Washington State history remains the 1998 Rose Bowl against Michigan, which drew 29 million viewers and ranks among the ten most-watched games in college football history, according to Front Office Sports. The 2003 Rose Bowl against Oklahoma brought in 18.29 million viewers.
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