Two of the better teams during the college football season could not lift the Russell Athletic Bowl.
Tuesday’s Baylor/North Carolina Russell Athletic Bowl earned 4.2 million viewers on ESPN, down 14% from Clemson/Oklahoma last year (4.9M) and down 27% from Louisville/Miami in 2013 (5.7M). Ratings were not immediately available.
The Bears’ blowout win ranks as the least-watched edition of the game in three years, since Virginia Tech/Rutgers in 2012 (3.9M). It joins eight other bowl games on ESPN this season — the Belk, Birmingham, Military, Hawaii, Poinsettia, Potato, New Orleans and New Mexico — in hitting a multi-year low.
Despite the lower numbers, the game ranks fourth out of the 23 bowl games on ESPN through Wednesday — trailing only the Texas Bowl later in the day (5.0M) and the Music City (5.4M) and Holiday (4.2M) bowls the following day.
(Tue. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily)
