It looks like its being proven more and more that football and television are a perfect match now more than ever.  Even on some of the more niche sports networks.

The Big Ten Network has announced that college football games this past Saturday on the network recorded the highest ratings in the nine metered markets within Big Ten country.

From Big Ten Network PR:

The noon ET games, which featured the Michigan-Michigan State overtime thriller and Northwestern’s come-from-behind-win at Purdue, averaged a combined 4.7 household rating (HH) in the nine metered markets, the highest rating in the region throughout the day, exceeding all other football programming. The Ohio State-Indiana game in primetime attracted a 4.5 HH rating, to lead all college football primetime games in the region.

In addition, based on Nielsen metered market data, the network had the highest total number of viewers of any day in the network’s history.

“We were extremely pleased with the millions of viewers we had on Saturday,” Big Ten Network President Mark Silverman said. “It reflects positively on the network’s growth and shows that great things are on the horizon for our young network.”

The Big Ten Network also set viewing records in the Columbus, Cleveland, Detroit, Dayton, and Chicago Markets.