Christian McCafferty and Leonard Fournette are not the only ones skipping the bowl season.
Dating back to Christmas Eve, nine of the last eleven bowl games on the ESPN family of networks has hit a multi-year viewership low. Last Saturday’s Hawaii/Middle Tennessee Hawaii Bowl started things off with a 0.7 final rating and 1.4 million viewers on ESPN, marking the smallest audience for the game since at least 2005. Viewership sank 17% from the previous low, 1.6 million for San Diego State/Cincinnati last year.
While the Hawaii Bowl aired directly opposite the NFL on NFL Network, the competition was actually lighter than last year — as Bengals/Texans fell 11% from Chargers/Raiders on Christmas Eve in 2015.
On Monday, Mississippi State/Miami (OH) had 2.0 million viewers in the St. Petersburg Bowl — down 15% from Marshall/Connecticut last year (2.4M) and the game’s smallest audience since ECU/Ohio in 2013 (0.9, 1.3M). Not coincidentally, it was the first edition of the game since 2013 to air on a weekday afternoon.
Later in the day, N.C. State/Vanderbilt had just 1.2 million viewers in the least watched Independence Bowl since 2008. The game, which aired on ESPN2 to accommodate Monday Night Football, fell an unsurprising 63% from Virginia Tech/Tulsa on ESPN last year.
That was followed by across-the-board lows on Tuesday. Minnesota/Washington State was the least-watched Holiday Bowl in three years and the third-least watched in a decade, scoring 4.0 million viewers — off 5% from a more appetizing Wisconsin/USC matchup last year (4.3M). Baylor/Boise State was the least-watched Cactus Bowl (2.3M, -38%) since it last aired on NFL Network in 2009 (673K). The Wake Forest/Temple Military Bowl (2.1M, -4%) was the least-watched since 2012 and the second-least watched in its history. The Army/North Texas Heart of Dallas Bowl (1.6M, -38%) was the least-watched since it last aired on ESPNU in 2013 (332K).
Rounding out the rough stretch, Wednesday’s Kansas State/Texas A&M Texas Bowl hit a seven-year low with 3.8 million viewers, down 24% from LSU/Texas Tech last year (5.0M) and down 34% from Arkansas/Texas in 2014 (5.7M). The Northwestern/Pittsburgh Pinstripe Bowl was the least-watched in its young history, with the audience of 2.4 million down 36% from Duke/Indiana on ABC last year (3.8M) and down 39% from Penn State/Boston College on ESPN in 2014 (4.0M). Keep in mind this year’s Pinstripe Bowl was the first edition since 2011 to take place on a weekday.
Entering Thursday’s action, the only bowl games to avoid declines this week were the Russell Athletic (+1%) and Detroit (+103%) bowls. That does not include the San Francisco Bowl on FOX, final figures for which were not immediately available.
