Fans may want a playoff, but they are still watching bowl games.
The average TV rating for the 34 bowls was up 3 percent from a year ago, when there were 32 bowls, according to data provided by Nielsen Media Research. The five lucrative Bowl Championship Series games enjoyed a 7 percent spike, including a 10 percent increase for the national championship game.
I’m curious what we’ll see in the ratings when the BCS switches to ESPN. As the article notes, ESPN has a better platform to promote the games than does Fox, but on the other hand, that platform will be completely on cable for the first time ever.
Were I the attorney general of the state of Utah, or the commissioner of the Mountain West, here’s what I’d be latching onto today:
The Mountain West, which is trying to become an automatic BCS qualifier in the future, had an average rating of 3.36 for five bowl games. That easily surpassed the Big East, which drew a 2.68 average.
The Mountain West – undefeated against the Pac-10 in the regular season, two teams in the final top 10 (the Big East had none) and a bigger draw on TV. Exactly why does the Big East have that automatic qualifier?
Get The Picture 
I don’t hate the BCS, it is better than what we had before when the bowl alliances prohibited many compelling match-ups that should have been played. It was an honest attempt to give us a championship game, and the closest we could come to having a true NC. Unfortunately, some of the other matchups have been weaker than everyone expected due to those same bowl alliances and other reasons related to political correctness and greed.
That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t watch Indiana play New Mexico if they put it on TV with no better CFB game to compete with. I love CFB that much and the bowls have now spread themselves out so they have a “CFB monopoly” for junkies like myself. Let’s face it, ESPN and the Thursday and Saturday night games have made the college game bigger than it was 15 years ago. Viewership will continue to grow if they continue to get the games from the SEC they got on 2007 on Saturday night, and the ones they got this year from the Big 12 on ABC. It hasn’t taken over the pro game in the northeast, but it has added substantially by winning over the casual fan, and converting many of those into passionate fans. (It still isn’t any near what a playoff would do, but I don’t need to start that over again!)
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Lots of people watched the Beverly Hillbillies, American Idol, and Full House. Doesn’t mean it was good TV.
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Damn, I bet myself that you were gonna go with a pro wrestling analogy. 😉
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If we’re bashing pro wrestling I might need to find a new blog to read.
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