Overnight ratings for the Sun Bowl were the highest in six years.
The Washington State/Miami Sun Bowl drew a 3.4 overnight rating on CBS Saturday afternoon, up 31% from Arizona State/Duke last year (2.6) and the highest mark for the game since Oklahoma/Stanford in 2009 (3.6). The Cougars’ win was the weekend’s highest rated bowl game in the metered markets, topping the Pinstripe Bowl on ABC head-to-head (2.6).
Saturday’s game was notable for its heavy snowfall, the first such occurrence at the Sun Bowl in 28 years — though it is impossible to know how much that contributed to the multi-year high.
In other action, the previously mentioned Duke/Indiana Pinstripe Bowl had a 2.6 overnight on ABC — down a tick from Penn State/Boston College last year (2.7) and down 21% from Notre Dame/Rutgers in 2013 (3.3). Those games aired on ESPN. Compared to last year’s South Carolina/Miami Independence Bowl, which aired on ABC in the same timeslot, overnights increased a tick from a 2.5.
Over on cable, the UCLA/Nebraska San Francisco Bowl topped the charts with a 2.3 overnight on ESPN. Overnights for last year’s game, which aired on a Tuesday night, were not available. Compared to last year’s USC/Nebraska Holiday Bowl in a similar timeslot, overnights declined 41% from a 3.9 — with the caveat that this year’s game faced NFL competition and last year’s did not.
The Virginia Tech/Tulsa Independence Bowl had a 2.1 overnight earlier in the evening, down 16% from last year’s South Carolina/Miami game on ABC. Rounding out the weekend slate, the Marshall/Connecticut St. Petersburg Bowl and the Washington/Southern Mississippi Heart of Dallas Bowl had overnights of 1.9 and 1.8, respectively; overnights for last year’s games were not available.
(Wknd. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily, twitter.com/cbssportsgang)
