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Who would have thunk it? High School Musical is now officially more popular than football.

On Friday night, Disney Channel premiered the highly anticipated sequel to the 2006 tween smash film. High School Musical 2, which follows the characters over summer break, was watched by an estimated 17.2 viewers, according to Nielsen Market Research.

In other words, more people watched High School Musical 2 than saw star Zac Efron’s big-screen summer vehicle Hairspray in its opening weekend. The 17.2 number is huge. That’s the total population of Arizona, Indiana and Louisiana combined. It’s also roughly 25% of the people who voted for George W. Bush in the last election.

This ratings performance shatters the records held by the debuts of Disney Channel’s The Cheetah Girls (6.5 million viewers), High School Musical (7.7 million viewers) and Jump In! (8.2 million viewers).

But that’s not all. This makes it the most-watched basic cable program in the history of cable. The previous record-holder was a “Monday Night Football” game on ESPN last year that brought in 16 million viewers.

Looks like armchair quarterbacks and beer commercials have been replaced by teeny boppers and Tiger Beat covers.

What a world we live in.