After a rough start in the ratings, college football’s bowl season scored a pair of increases this week.
Thursday’s Marshall-South Florida Gasparilla Bowl scored 1.75 million viewers on ESPN, up 10% from last year (Temple-FIU: 1.60M) but down 14% from 2016 (Mississippi State-Miami Ohio: 2.05M). Ratings were not immediately available.
The Thundering Herd’s win delivered the largest cable audience of the young bowl season (six telecasts).
Even so, it ranks as the third-least watched Gasparilla Bowl (previously St. Petersburg Bowl) in a decade — ahead of last year and 2012 (ECU-Ohio: 1.27M).
On Wednesday night, the San Diego State-Ohio Frisco Bowl scored a 0.9 rating and 1.45 million viewers (+16%), marking the largest audience in the five-year history of the game (previously the Miami Beach Bowl).
The St. Petersburg and Frisco bowls were the second and third of the bowl season to increase over last year (eight telecasts). Last Saturday’s New Orleans Bowl posted a three percent viewership bump, despite a slight ratings decline.
In other action, Tuesday’s UAB-Northern Illinois Boca Raton Bowl drew a 0.8 and 1.35 million viewers (-3%). It was the least-watched edition of the five-year old game. Since it debuted with 2.25 million in 2014, viewership for the game has declined in each subsequent year.
[Numbers from Nielsen via Programming Insider 12.19, 12.20, 12.21]
