The College Football Playoff semifinals averaged their smallest New Year’s Day audience yet, but the numbers were still the best for any non-NFL sporting event since sports went dark last March.
Friday’s Ohio State-Clemson Sugar Bowl averaged a Nielsen-estimated 19.15 million viewers across the ESPN family of networks, down 9% from last year’s Fiesta Bowl semifinal between the same two teams (21.15M), but up slightly from the Alabama-Oklahoma Orange Bowl semifinal two years ago (19.07M).
Compared to the last Sugar Bowl to host a CFP semifinal — Alabama-Clemson in 2018 — viewership fell 11% from 21.47 million.
Earlier in the day, the Notre Dame-Alabama Rose Bowl (at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Tex.) averaged 18.89 million — up 10% from last year’s Peach Bowl semifinal (LSU-Oklahoma: 17.21M) and up 12% from the Cotton Bowl semifinal two years ago (Clemson-Notre Dame: 16.81M).
Versus the previous Rose Bowl semifinal in 2018 — Georgia-Oklahoma at the usual site of Pasadena, Ca. — viewership fell 30% from 26.91 million.
This year’s semifinals rank as easily the least-watched of the six that have aired on New Year’s Day.* The previous four each averaged more than 20 million viewers. Overall, they rank eighth and tenth out of the 14 total CFP semifinals.
If low by the standards of previous New Year’s Day semifinals, the games were easily the most-watched non-NFL sporting events since the wave of cancellations and postponements last March — topping every non-football sporting event since Game 7 of the 2019 World Series.
Earlier Friday, the Georgia-Cincinnati Peach Bowl averaged 8.72 million across the ESPN networks — up 4% from the 2018-19 season, the last time the game was not a playoff semifinal (Florida-Michigan: 8.37M) and the most-watched non-semifinal Peach Bowl on record. The previous high was 8.69 million for Texas A&M-Duke in 2013.
For the season, the Bulldogs’ win ranks seventh among college football games behind the playoff semifinals, both Clemson-Notre Dame games, the SEC Championship and Georgia-Alabama in October.
In other New Year’s Six action, Saturday’s Texas A&M-North Carolina Orange Bowl averaged 7.58 million — up 25% from Florida-Virginia last year (6.07M). The Iowa State-Oregon Fiesta Bowl drew 6.68 million earlier in the day, down 21% from the last non-semifinal edition two years ago (LSU-UCF: 8.47M) and the least-watched edition of the game on record.
Last Wednesday’s Oklahoma-Florida Cotton Bowl averaged 5.77 million, down 7% from last year (Penn State-Memphis: 6.22M) and the least-watched edition of that game since the 2016-17 season (Wisconsin-Western Michigan: 5.44M).
As for the non-CFP bowls, the New Year’s Eve Army-West Virginia Liberty Bowl averaged 3.74 million — up 12% from last year (Navy-Kansas State: 3.33M) but down 2% from two years ago (Oklahoma State-Missouri: 3.83M). The Mississippi State-Tulsa Armed Forces Bowl drew 2.25 million earlier in the day (+29%).
Finally, the Wake Forest-Wisconsin Charlotte Bowl averaged 1.98 million early last Wednesday (-25%), its smallest audience since at least 2005. Figures for the recent bowls on broadcast television — the Arizona Bowl on New Year’s Eve and Citrus Bowl on New Year’s Day — will be available Wednesday.
* The 2018 games aired on January 2, but that counts as the New Year’s Day holiday when January 1 falls on a Sunday.
[Nielsen estimates from ESPN PR 1.5, ShowBuzz Daily 1.4 a, b, 1.5]
