Clemson's riveting victory over Ohio State was up 10% from last year's primetime CFP matchup on ESPNgetty images
Both CFP semifinal games on Saturday delivered increased viewership year over year. Saturday night's Clemson-Ohio State Playstation Fiesta Bowl drew a total audience delivery of 21.2 million viewers across ESPN platforms, up 10% from last year's primetime window (19.1 million viewers for Alabama-Oklahoma). Earlier in the day, ESPN drew a TAD of 17.2 million viewers for LSU's blowout of Oklahoma in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, up from 16.8 million for Clemson's win over Notre Dame in last year's early window. Saturday's games combined to average 19.3 million viewers, up 6% from last year (THE DAILY).
POOR CHOICE OF WORDS: In N.Y., Mark Fischer noted ESPN's Matt Barrie was "slammed by viewers" on Saturday after referring to the death of LSU co-offensive coordinator Steve Ensminger's daughter-in-law as a "distraction" ahead of the semifinal in Atlanta. Ensminger's daughter-in-law, Carley McCord, was "one of five people killed in a small Louisiana plane crash" earlier in the day (N.Y. POST, 12/29). Meanwhile, SEC Network's Dari Nowkhah apologized for breaking the news of McCord's death to LSU QB Joe Burrow during a postgame interview. Nowkhah took to Twitter yesterday and wrote, "I'm so sorry for the way we handled the end of our postgame interview with Joe Burrow last night. I obviously feel horrible to have been the one to have broken the news of Carley McCord's passing to Joe, and have shared my apologies and sincere condolences with LSU. Our live interview with Joe was several hours after the news broke & was a major storyline of last night's game. With that said, we shouldn't have assumed he was aware, and that's on us" (TWITTER.com, 12/29).
ALL EYES ON ME: In Honolulu, Ferd Lewis noted the Univ. of Hawaii's 38-34 comeback victory over BYU on Christmas Eve "attracted the largest TV audience of any Rainbow Warriors game in 11 years, 2.43 million on ESPN." The viewership "doubled" UH's '18 Hawaii Bowl appearance against Louisiana Tech and was the largest audience for the school since the '08 Hawaii Bowl, when 4.41 million tuned in to see Notre Dame's 49-21 Christmas Eve victory. This year's iteration of the SoFi Hawaii Bowl was also "aided by being the only bowl or major sports event on TV that day as well as a return" to the 3:00pm local (8:00pm ET) kickoff (HONOLULU STAR-ADVERTISER, 12/29).
