Two of college football’s traditional powers — FSU and Oklahoma — delivered the largest audience of the bowl season thus far.
Thursday’s Florida State-Oklahoma college football bowl game averaged 5.4 million viewers on ESPN, marking the largest audience of the current bowl season and the largest for the bowl in question — the one-time Tangerine Bowl currently sponsored by Cheez-It — since 2013 (Louisville-Miami: 5.75M). (Keep in mind that out-of-home data was not included in viewership prior to two years ago.)
FSU’s win jumped 10% from Clemson-Iowa State in the same window last year (4.90M). Ratings were not immediately available. Nor were figures for the competing NFL Thursday Night Football game on Amazon.
Aided by the big lead-in, the Washington-Texas Alamo Bowl averaged 4.78 million — the second-largest audience of the bowl season and the most-watched edition of that bowl since 2019 (Utah-Texas: 5.61M). Viewership inched up slightly from last year (Oregon-Oklahoma: 4.74M).
All three Thursday games posted an increase over last year, with the Minnesota-Syracuse Pinstripe Bowl scoring 2.75 million viewers — a 13% gain over last year’s 2.44 million for Maryland-Virginia Tech.
On Wednesday, the Oregon-North Carolina Holiday Bowl scored 3.97 million viewers on FOX — the third-largest audience of the bowl season and up 59% from the last time it was played three years ago (Iowa-USC: 2.50M). Keep in mind that 2019 game aired on FS1. Viewership was the highest for the game since it last aired on ESPN in 2016 (Minnesota-Washington State: 4.05M).
The Holiday Bowl overlapped with Arkansas’ thrilling win over Kansas in the Liberty Bowl, which averaged 3.91 million on ESPN — actually down slightly from last year (Mississippi State-TCU: 3.92M), but still the fourth-largest audience of the bowl season.
Also Wednesday, the Texas Tech-Mississippi Texas Bowl scored 2.60 million and the UCF-Duke Military Bowl 2.16 million — up 10% and 4% respectively from the previous editions.
In other action, the Coastal Carolina-ECU Birmingham Bowl led Tuesday’s games with 2.62 million viewers (+14%) — the largest audience for the game in five years — followed by the Wisconsin-Oklahoma State Cactus Bowl (2.56M, +6%), Memphis-Utah State First Responder Bowl (2.20M, -19%) and Georgia Southern-Buffalo Camellia Bowl (1.55M, -10%).
Monday’s lone bowl game — New Mexico State-Bowling Green in Detroit — scored 2.32 million in a mid-afternoon window, more-than-doubling last year’s late morning edition (Western Michigan-Nevada: 1.07M).
The Christmas Eve Hawaii Bowl drew a 0.58 and 1.12 million opposite NFL coverage — down more-than-half from the last time it was held in 2019. There was no NFL competition that year (Hawaii-BYU: 1.4, 2.43M).
Going back to last week, the Wake Forest-Missouri Gasparilla Bowl scored a 1.8 (+6%) and 3.54 million (+11%) — the largest audience ever for the game and fifth-largest of the bowl season — and the Houston-Louisiana Independence Bowl scored a 1.3 (-30%) and 2.41 million (-25%).
(Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 12.28, 12.29)
