The Citrus Bowl delivered the highest ratings of the bowl season outside of the New Year’s Six. Also: the FCS national championship hit a multi-year low, and Indiana-Michigan scored the top college basketball audience of the season.
Citrus Bowl Tops Non-NY6 Slate
The Kentucky-Penn State Citrus Bowl had a 4.4 rating and 7.71 million viewers on ABC New Year’s Day, down 14% in ratings and 12% in viewership* from last year (Notre Dame-LSU: 5.1, 8.73M), but up 13% and 21% respectively from two years ago, when the game took place on New Year’s Eve (LSU-Louisville: 3.9, 6.39M).
The Wildcats’ win was the highest rated and most-watched bowl game outside of the New Year’s Six.
On New Year’s Eve, FOX earned a 2.3 and 3.79 million for the Oregon-Michigan State San Francisco Bowl — up 35% in ratings and 34% in viewership from last year (Purdue-Arizona: 1.7, 2.83M) and up 44% in both measures from 2016 (Indiana-Utah: 1.6, 2.63M). It was the most-watched edition of the game since it last aired on ESPN in 2015 (UCLA-Nebraska: 4.05M).
Airing the same day on CBS, the Stanford-Pittsburgh Sun Bowl drew a 1.8 (+20%) and 2.62 million (+19%). The complete list of 2018-19 college football bowl ratings is available here.
FCS Title Game Hits Low
Saturday’s North Dakota State-Eastern Washington FCS college football championship had a 0.6 rating and 1.00 million viewers on ESPN2, down 40% in ratings and 34% in viewership from last year (NDSU-James Madison: 1.0, 1.52M) and down a third and 36% respectively from 2017 (JMU-Youngstown State: 0.9, 1.56M).
It was the least-watched FCS title game since at least 2012.
Indiana-Michigan Top CBB Game of Season
Airing immediately after NFL Wild Card coverage, Sunday’s Indiana-Michigan college basketball game delivered a 1.9 rating and 2.99 million viewers on CBS — down 10% in ratings and viewership from last year (Michigan-Ohio State: 2.1, 3.30M), but flat and up 1% respectively from 2017 (Wisconsin-Purdue: 1.9, 2.97M).
The Wolverines’ win ranks as the most-watched college basketball game of the season. The previous high was 2.85 million for Duke-Kentucky in the Champions Classic.
The previous night, ESPN scored a 0.75 (flat) and 1.26 million (+3%) for Clemson-Duke following another NFL playoff game.
* Last year’s Citrus Bowl viewership includes streaming.
[Numbers from Nielsen via ShowBuzz Daily 1.8]
