Viewership During '11-12 College Bowl Season Down 15% From Last Year

The ’11-12 college bowl season averaged 5.2 million viewers for 34 telecasts across Fox, CBS, ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, down 15% from 6.1 million viewers last year. Figures for the TicketCity Bowl are excluded from both years as the game aired on ESPNU, which does not report ratings on a game-by-game basis. While viewership for the five BCS games on ESPN was down 16%, ESPN and ESPN2 averaged 3.4 million viewers for 25 non-BCS games, down 9.2% from 3.7 million viewers last year. The most-viewed non-BCS bowl game on ESPN this season was the Baylor-Washington Valero Alamo Bowl on Dec. 29 with 6.9 million viewers, which also ranked as the net’s fifth most-viewed non-BCS bowl ever. Fox’ lone bowl game was again the AT&T Cotton Bowl, which was the most-viewed non-BCS bowl on TV with 8.4 million viewers for the Arkansas-Kansas State matchup last Friday night. That figure is down 17% from the LSU-Texas A&M matchup last year. CBS aired the Hyundai Sun Bowl for the 44th straight year, with this year’s Utah-Georgia Tech game averaging 4.1 million viewers, down 11% from the Notre Dame-Miami matchup last year. Listed below are the top 10 most-viewed non-BCS bowl games this season. Also see ratings and viewership for each bowl game this season.

BOWL	MATCHUP	DATE	NET	RAT.	VIEWERS (000)
AT&T Cotton	Arkansas-Kansas State	1/6	Fox	5.0	8,363
Outback	Michigan State-Georgia	1/2	ABC	5.1	8,174
Valero Alamo	Baylor-Washington	12/29	ESPN	4.4	6,923
Chick-fil-A	Auburn-Virginia	12/31	ESPN	3.6	6,155
Champs Sports	Florida State-Notre Dame	12/29	ESPN	3.3	5,228
Insight	Oklahoma-Iowa	12/30	ESPN	3.0	4,812
Capital One	South Carolina-Nebraska	1/2	ESPN	2.9	4,499
Bridgepoint Education Holiday	Texas-Cal	12/28	ESPN	2.7	4,263
Franklin American Mortgage Music City	Mississippi State- Wake Forest	12/30	ESPN	2.7	4,214
Hyundai Sun	Utah-Georgia Tech	12/31	CBS	2.7	4,105