Figures for the Thursday Night Football season finale will not be available until after the New Year. In the meantime, the biggest social media hit of the bowl season was also the most-watched on television.
Thursday’s Kansas State-NC State Pop-Tarts Bowl, which gained social media notoriety due to its anthropomorphic Pop-Tart mascot, averaged 4.31 million viewers on ESPN — the largest audience of the bowl season thus far. Viewership nonetheless declined 20% from the same bowl in the same window last year (under a different sponsor), a marquee matchup of Florida State and Oklahoma (5.40M).
The Wildcats’ win actually ranks as the least-watched edition of ever-changing Orlando-based bowl game — previous title sponsors include Camping World, Russell Athletic and Champs Sports — since 2020.
Given the above, it would be a stretch to suggest that the Pop-Tart sponsorship drove increased viewership. While it is true that both the Pop-Tarts Bowl and Duke’s Mayo Bowl (which similarly courts social media engagement) delivered bowl season-highs on back-to-back nights, that is more likely due to their early evening timeslots than anything else.
In other bowl action, the Arizona-Oklahoma Alamo Bowl averaged 3.93 million — down 18% from Washington-Texas a year ago (4.78M) and a three-year low. The Rutgers-Miami Pinstripe Bowl drew 3.00 million earlier in the day, up 9% from last year (Minnesota-Syracuse: 2.75M) and the highest since 2019 (Michigan State-Wake Forest: 3.80M). The Boston College-SMU Fenway Bowl started the day off with 1.46 million, down 26% from the inaugural edition last year (Louisville-Cincinnati: 1.96M).
The day’s top non-football sporting event was the Pistons-Celtics NBA regular season game on NBA TV. Detroit’s overtime loss averaged 561,000 viewers, the network’s third-largest audience of the season. Cavaliers-Warriors on November 11 holds the top spot (645K) followed by Spurs-Suns on November 2 (580K). The Pistons entered the night on a 26-game losing streak and at one point led by as many as 21.
The Heat-Warriors lead-out averaged 508,000. The full doubleheader averaged 536,000 viewers, more-than-double last year’s solo Wizards-Jazz game (206K).
In other action, Tottenham-Brighton in the English Premier League averaged 354,000 on USA Network. A USC-Oregon college basketball game drew 160,000 on ESPN2.
Thursday, December 28 sports ratings
Updated chart:
Original chart below:
