A quartet of college football bowl games topped the sports viewership charts for Wednesday, December 27.
The West Virginia-North Carolina Duke’s Mayo Bowl averaged 3.84 million viewers on ESPN, marking the largest sports audience of the day and up 44% from Maryland-N.C. State in an earlier window last year (2.68M). The Mountaineers’ win delivered the largest audience for the Charlotte-based bowl game since 2016 (Virginia Tech-Arkansas: 4.96M).
The Mayo Bowl was the most-watched of the bowl season as of Wednesday, but was surpassed by the following day’s Pop-Tarts Bowl in Orlando.
Placing second for the day, the USC-Louisville Holiday Bowl averaged 3.51 million viewers on FOX — down 11% from Oregon-North Carolina last year (3.97M).
Returning to ESPN, the Oklahoma State-Texas A&M Texas Bowl averaged 3.08 million — up 18% from last year (Texas Tech-Mississippi: 2.60M) and the largest audience for the game since the same matchup in 2019 (4.90M). (The game was not played in 2020).
The Virginia Tech-Tulane Military Bowl rounded out the day’s slate with 2.26 million, up 4% from Duke-UCF last year (2.16M), and the largest audience for the game since 2018 (Cincinnati-Virginia Tech: 2.66M). (Keep in mind the game was not played in 2020 or 2021).
For the second-straight day, the English Premier League delivered the top non-football sports audience. Manchester City-Everton averaged 507,000 viewers on USA Network, up 17% from Manchester United-Leeds last year (433K). In other action, TNT averaged 438,000 for a Bruins-Sabres NHL regular season game — down 18% from Bruins-Devils a year ago (534K).
Shifting to the NBA, Raptors-Wizards averaged 246,000 viewers on NBA TV — down 8% from Warriors-Wizards last year (268K).
Wednesday, December 27 sports ratings
Updated chart:
Original chart below:
