Arguably the best major bowl game of all time “didn’t draw overwhelming numbers” according to Zap2it.com; the Fiesta Bowl between Boise State and Oklahoma helped FOX average a 7.5/12 for the night. While the numbers for the game itself are still not out yet, it is likely that this year’s Fiesta Bowl won’t end up with a double digit rating.
This isn’t a huge surprise; in most years, the only BCS games to average a double digit rating are the Rose Bowl and the National Championship Game. Last year was a great year for the BCS; only the Sugar Bowl didn’t average a double digit rating. Important to remember that last year, the Rose Bowl was the National Championship game, the Fiesta Bowl featured Notre Dame and Ohio State, and the Orange Bowl saw Florida State and Penn State (two teams with legendary coaches and large national followings) battle in triple overtime.
This year, the matchups aren’t quite as ratings friendly. Boise State/Oklahoma was a classic game, but not one casual fans would tune into en masse. Louisville/Wake Forest could turn out to be the lowest rated Orange Bowl of all time. While Michigan/USC is a lock to have scored at least an 11 rating (the game helped ABC win the 8:00 hour with an 8.5 rating, even though USC had already locked up the win at that point) and Notre Dame/LSU could easily score at least a 10, it looks like this year is going to pale in comparison to last year, ratings wise.
The key for whether or not the ratings will come close to last year’s depends on Notre Dame/LSU. If that game is a blowout early, the casual fans who tune in because of Notre Dame might just as soon tune out. If its close, then the ratings could approach the 12.9 for last year’s Fiesta Bowl (which also featured Notre Dame).
Right now, it looks like the Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl and Rose Bowl (which averaged a 12.9, 12.3 and 21.7 rating last year, respectively) will all be down significantly from last year — the Rose Bowl especially, as it was the National Championship Game last season. The Sugar Bowl, which averaged a 9.0 last year, will almost definitely improve. Certainly, the numbers won’t be bad by any stretch of the imagination (its likely that the average for the five BCS bowls will still be higher than that of last year’s World Series or NBA Finals), but they won’t be as good as they were last year, or even during this past regular season (OSU-Michigan will more than likely end up with a higher rating than at least three of the BCS bowls).
