College Football

College football’s record-setting Bowl Season up 14% year-over-year

Bowl Season has been nothing short of remarkable for ESPN from a viewership perspective.

As has already been well-documented, despite the expansion of the College Football Playoff to 12 teams, non-CFP bowls have been drawing record audiences this year. According to ESPN PR, the 2024-25 college football bowl season was the most-watched in five years, averaging 2.7 million viewers per game across 33 non-CFP bowls and increasing 14% versus last season.

ESPN’s 25 bowl games averaged 2.4 million viewers, up 15% year-over-year. ABC drew an impressive average of 5.0 million viewers for its five bowl games, up a whopping 71% versus last year.

Per ESPN, 14 of the 33 bowl games achieved at least a five-year viewership high, while five games reached ten-year highs. The Alamo Bowl between BYU and Colorado led the way, capturing an audience of 8 million viewers on ABC. It was the most-watched Alamo Bowl game on record and the most-watched non-CFP or New Year’s Six Bowl game in five years. The fan-favorite Pop-Tarts Bowl clocked in at 6.8 million viewers, the most-watched edition of that game since 2008.

The 17 bowl games run by ESPN Events fared particularly well, though the non-ESPN Events bowls outpaced them. That slate of games—headlined by the Texas Bowl and Birmingham Bowl—averaged 1.9 million viewers, up 9% year over year. Six of the ESPN Events bowls saw viewership highs of five or more years.

Take a look at the list of bowls that set multi-year viewership records, courtesy of ESPN PR:

  • Valero Alamo Bowl: 8 Million Viewers – Most-watched on record (back to 1993)
  • Pop-Tarts Bowl: 6.8 Million Viewers – Most-watched since 2008
  • ReliaQuest Bowl: 6.5 Million Viewers – Most-watched since 2012
  • Kinder’s Texas Bowl: 4.2 Million Viewers – Most-watched since 2019
  • AutoZone Liberty Bowl: 4.2 Million Viewers – Most-watched since 2015 season
  • Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl: 4.1 Million Viewers – Most-watched since 2013
  • Birmingham Bowl: 4.1 Million Viewers – Most-watched since 2014 season
  • Rate Bowl: 3.5 Million Viewers – Most-watched since 2015 season
  • Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl: 2.9 Million Viewers – Most-watched since 2017
  • GameAbove Sports Bowl: 2.6 Million Viewers – Most-watched since 2019
  • Wasabi Fenway Bowl: 2.1 Million Viewers – Most-watched ever
  • Hawai’i Bowl: 1.9 Million Viewers – Most-watched since 2019
  • 68 Ventures Bowl: 1.7 Million Viewers – Most-watched since 2018
  • Scooter’s Coffee Frisco Bowl: 1.2 Million Viewers – Most-watched since 2019
  • Bahamas Bowl Presented by Atlantis Resorts: 1.1 Million Viewers – Most-watched since 2016

In an era of diminished sports viewership, achieving such marks is impressive, even when accounting for the numerous ways Nielsen has altered its methodology to increase viewership in recent years.

Bowls on ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2 accounted for 19.2 billion minutes watched. It seems like anyone who thought the expanded playoff would adversely impact other bowl games can throw that theory out the window after this season.

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