College bowl season began this past weekend with four games on Saturday. ABC led the way with a 2.3 overnight for the Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl featuring USC-Fresno State. That figure is down from a 3.0 overnight for the same bowl game last year on ESPN, which featured Boise State-Washington. ESPN’s Gildan New Mexico Bowl kicked off bowl season on Saturday afternoon with a 1.9 overnight for the Colorado State-Washington State matchup. That is flat compared to the Arizona-Nevada matchup last year, which also led off bowl season. ESPN also earned a 1.5 overnight for the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl featuring San Diego State-Buffalo, down from a 1.9 rating for Utah State-Toledo last year. The net earned a 1.4 overnight for the Louisiana Lafayette-Tulane R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl, down from a 1.9 for ULL’s win over East Carolina last year.
The chart below lists overnight Nielsen ratings from weekend sports telecasts on broadcast TV.
| TELECAST |
DATE
|
NET
|
TIME (ET)
|
RATING
|
| Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl: USC-Fresno State |
12/21
|
ABC
|
3:30-7:15pm
|
2.3
|
| College Basketball: Michigan State-Texas |
12/21
|
CBS
|
4:00-6:00pm
|
1.0
|
| "Premier League Match of the Day" |
12/21
|
NBC
|
1:30-3:30pm
|
0.5
|
| Red Bull Signature Series: Rampage |
12/21
|
NBC
|
3:30-5:00pm
|
0.6
|
| Swimming: AT&T U.S. Winter Nationals |
12/21
|
NBC
|
5:00-6:00pm
|
0.9
|
| "The NFL Today" |
12/22
|
CBS
|
12:00-1:00pm
|
2.7
|
| "NFL on CBS": (regional) |
12/22
|
CBS
|
1:00-4:15pm
|
10.8
|
| "NFL on CBS": Patriots-Ravens (65%) |
12/22
|
CBS
|
4:15-7:30pm
|
14.8
|
| "Fox NFL Sunday" |
12/22
|
Fox
|
12:00-1:00pm
|
3.4
|
| "NFL on Fox": (single) |
12/22
|
Fox
|
1:00-4:05pm
|
13.3
|
| World of Adventure Sports |
12/22
|
NBC
|
1:00-2:00pm
|
0.5
|
| USSA Grand Prix: Ski Slopestyle, Snowboard Halfpipe |
12/22
|
NBC
|
2:00-4:00pm
|
0.5
|
| Swimming: Duel in the Pool: U.S.-European All-Stars |
12/22
|
NBC
|
4:00-6:00pm
|
0.7
|
| "Football Night in America" |
12/22
|
NBC
|
7:30-8:15pm
|
4.6
|
| "Sunday Night Football": Bears-Eagles |
12/22
|
NBC
|
8:30-11:45pm
|
12.5
|
