The Oregon-Wisconsin Rose Bowl megacast at 5:00pm ET on Jan. 1 averaged 16.3 million viewersESPN IMAGES
ESPN saw a viewership drop for its New Year’s Day Rose Bowl/Sugar Bowl doubleheader compared to ’19, but the audience for the Rose Bowl remained strong in the context of the CFP era (’14 season). The Oregon-Wisconsin Rose Bowl megacast at 5:00pm ET on Jan. 1 averaged 16.3 million viewers, down 3% from Ohio State-Washington in the same window last year. However, Oregon-Wisconsin is the second-best non-semifinal New Year’s Six game since the CFP era began. Two years ago, the Rose Bowl was the CFP semifinal. In ’17, USC-Penn State aired on Jan. 2 to avoid NFL action, and ESPN drew only 15.7 million there. Meanwhile, in the New Year’s Day nightcap this year, Georgia’s win over Baylor in the Allstate Sugar Bowl delivered 10.2 million viewers, down 23% from Texas-Georgia last year in the same window.
TIDE HAS TURNED: The Alabama-Michigan matchup in the Vrbo Citrus Bowl on Jan. 1 in the 1:00pm ET window delivered just over 14 million viewers, marking ABC’s best bowl game audience since the Alabama-Texas BCS title game in ’10, which was the last time ABC aired the national championship. Alabama-Michigan this year marks the fourth-best Citrus Bowl audience all-time (figures date back to ‘91), and the best Citrus audience since Florida-Michigan in ’08 (14.8 million).
