(01-18-2018 11:18 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(01-18-2018 11:08 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(01-18-2018 10:51 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(01-18-2018 10:29 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(01-17-2018 09:44 PM)msm96wolf Wrote:  If anything, it shows bowls are going away anytime soon.

http://www.fbschedules.com/2018/01/which...ched-most/

Surprising the Citrus outdrew the Peach.

Interesting on value of regular season vs. bowls:

"...1. (1) Alabama at (6) Auburn – Saturday, Nov. 25 on CBS – 13.66 million viewers.
Overall, only three bowl games outdrew the top regular-season game in viewership – and those were all associated with the CFP bracket (the Sugar and Rose semi-finals and the National Championship game). In other words, no non-bracket bowl game attracted more viewers than did Alabama at Auburn in Week 13. And, rather than being literally the only game on TV, the Iron Bowl was one of 43 games played that Saturday.
Of the three teams mentioned twice in the top five of regular-season viewership, two drew in more viewers in their regular-season highs than during bowl season:
Ohio State had 9.468 million tune in to its Cotton Bowl appearance vs. USC. Compare that to the 10.15 million it drew at Michigan and the 12.92 it garnered in the Big Ten title game vs. Wisconsin.
Auburn had 8.377 million viewers watch its Peach Bowl appearance vs. UCF (the least viewed of the six rotating CFP bowl games). Compare that to the 13.47 million who tuned in for the SEC title game vs. Georgia and the 13.66 million who watched the Iron Bowl vs. Alabama...."

The author seems to think his numbers denigrate the bowls, but in fact they show how important they are. E.g., the discussion of Auburn makes the Peach look bad, but it was still the 3rd-highest rated game Auburn played all last year, and they draw good ratings. The Peach even beat out the first Auburn - Georgia game.

And for UCF, it surely was far and away their most-watched game. Heck, all the other games UCF played put together drew about 9.5 million viewers. The Peach did 8.3 million by itself.

The article shows what a BOON these bowl games are exposure-wise for the G5 teams. E.g., Troy's bowl game drew 1.3 million viewers, more than double the viewers for any other game, except for LSU vs Troy, and it even beat that game by 500k viewers.

These bowl games, even the rinky-dink ones, are nice exposure for the G5.

The past several years there have not been many schools who didn't have their best TV ratings of the year for their bowl game.
The exceptions have been the schools playing a midweek game during work hours, teams that lost a conference title game, and some quirks like Rice's game against TAMU when Johnny Out Of Football came back from his suspension.

Bowls are just a good stage to reach more people.

Yes, e.g., Boise State's bowl game tripled their viewers for any other game, and they are a pretty high profile brand that plays P5 teams in the regular season.

Typically, a G5 team will double or even triple its best audience for the year in their bowl game, no matter how rink-dink the bowl is, and even if it is G5 vs G5.

These bolded statements aren't really true for the American.

In 2017, bowl games were only 3 of the top 10 best-viewed games for the AAC. The Peach Bowl WASN'T the most viewed AAC game. And while that was UCF's most viewed game, two other UCF games were in that top 10 - Peach wasn't double. Memphis' bowl game was its most watched by only 53,000 viewers, and another Memphis game was within 200k viewers. Temple's bowl game beat out a regular season Temple game by 17,000 viewers. Four of the five non-bowl games I'm talking about for those three schools were conference controlled. Navy, Houston, and USF had solid bowl performance and all three had better viewership games in regular season.

2016 only two bowls are in the AAC's top-ten viewed games. Armed Forces Bowl is #10 on that list and #3 for Navy. Temple is the only school with bowl game being most watched...by only 50k. UCF, USF, Navy, Houston, Tulsa, and Memphis had bowl games with lower viewership than their other games.

2015, 8 AAC bowl games, ALL over a million viewers...and 18 non-bowl games. Houston's Peach Bowl led the way for bowls but was #3 overall for the AAC, and still wasn't "double" Houston's Black Friday game vs Navy. Navy's bowl was #4 for Navy, Temple's bowl was #3 for Temple, and USF's bowl was #3 for USF; four of those seven better games were conference controlled and three were intra-AAC.