The Top 25 matchup between No. 17 BYU and No. 23 Colorado in primetime with “Coach Prime” delivered as expected as the Big 12 Alamo Bowl matchup provided a record in TV viewership with more than 8 million viewers tuning in.
Coming into the bowl game, BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff called it “the people’s Big 12 Championship” and it certainly was as everyone tuned in to watch the Cougars and the Buffs.
In fact, it was the most-viewed non-CFP/New Year’s Six game since the Citrus Bowl between No. 13 Alabama and No. 14 Michigan in 2020. The Cougars and the Buffs also played in front of a capacity crowd of 64,261 making it just the 12th sellout in the Valero Alamo Bowl’s 32 year history. The 2024 attendance was the second-highest ever for a Valero Alamo Bowl that did not include a team from Texas.
BYU Proves Playoff Worthy In Alamo Bowl Win, Social Media Talks Playoff Snub
In terms of viewership and despite the Cougars’ blowout win, the Top 25 matchup delivered the largest audience on record for the Alamo Bowl, surpassing the previous high of 7.83 million for Texas Tech-Michigan State in 2010.
Viewership more-than-doubled last year’s Alamo Bowl (3.9M) in which No. 14 Arizona rallied to beat No. 12 Oklahoma 38-24. In 2022, the game between No. 12
Washington and No. 20 Texas had 4.8M viewers. In the past 10 years, viewership has averaged 5.1M and over the past 20 years, viewership has averaged 5.8M viewers.
In it’s 32-year history, the Alamo Bowl has only had five games in which viewership was more than seven million, but none of them have topped eight million.
No. 17 BYU Crushes No. 23 Colorado 36-14 — Here’s All The Reactions
The Alamo Bowl was the most-watched Colorado game all season, surpassing the previous high of 6.22 million for the Buffaloes’ late-season loss to Kansas. It was the same for BYU as the Cougars previous high was 2.07M in its game against Utah.
Earlier in the day, ABC’s game between Iowa State and Miami in the Pop-Tarts Bowl had viewership of 6.8M — the largest audience for the Orlando-based bowl since 2008 (Florida State-Wisconsin: 7.1M) and an increase of 58% from last year on ESPN (Kansas State-NC State: 4.3M).
When compared to the conference championship games, the Alamo Bowl had more viewers than both the Big 12 (6.9M) and ACC (5.9M) title games. Saturday’s game also had more viewers than the first-round playoff matchup between Penn State and SMU (6.6M) and just less than Texas-Clemson (8.9M).
Here’s a look at the TV viewership numbers for the Alamo Bowl over the past 32 years.
Alamo Bowl TV Viewership
2024: BYU-Colorado (no rating, 8.0M viewers)
2023: Arizona-Oklahoma (no rating, 3.9M viewers)
2022: Washington-Texas (2.6 rating, 4.8M viewers)
2021: Oklahoma-Oregon (2.7 rating, 4.7M viewers)
2020: Texas-Colorado (1.7 rating, 3.1M viewers)
2019: Texas-Utah (3.1 rating, 6.2M viewers)
2018: Washington State-Iowa State (3.2 rating, 6.1M viewers)
2017: TCU-Stanford (2.6 rating, 4.6M viewers)
2016: Oklahoma State-Colorado (2.6 rating, 4.9M viewers)
2015: Oregon-TCU (4.4 rating, 7.4M viewers)
2014: UCLA-Kansas State (3.4 rating, 5.6M viewers)
2013: Oregon-Texas (4.5 rating, 7.5M viewers)
2012: Texas-Oregon State (4.8 rating, 6.8M viewers)
2011: Baylor-Washington (5.1 rating, 6.9M viewers)
2010: Oklahoma State/Arizona (2.8 rating, 4.6M viewers)
2009: Texas Tech-Michigan State (5.6 rating, 7.8M viewers)
2008: Missouri-Northwestern (4.6 rating, 6.1M viewers)
2007: Penn State-Texas A&M (2.7 rating, 4.1M viewers)
2006: Texas-Iowa (6.0 rating, 7.8M viewers)
2005: Nebraska-Michigan (5.4 rating, 7.7M viewers)
2004: Ohio State-Oklahoma State (4.3 rating, 6.4M viewers)
2003: Nebraska-Michigan State (4.2 rating)
2002: Wisconsin-Colorado (4.4 rating)
2001: Iowa-Texas Tech (3.8 rating)
2000: Nebraska-Northwestern (3.8 rating)
BYU Proves Playoff Worthy In Alamo Bowl Win, Social Media Talks Playoff Snub
College Football Bowl Games Set Multi-Year Viewership Highs
If there were any doubts about the continued popularity of college football bowl games in the age of an expanded playoff, those questions were answered by a surge in viewership over the past week, hitting multi-year highs across the board.
In addition to the viewership record for BYU-Colorado and the 58% year-over-year boost this year in the Pop Tarts Bowl between Iowa State and Miami, a plethora of other bowl games saw big increases year-over-year (YoY).
More than 4.1M viewers tuned in for the Boston College-Nebraska game (+40% YoY), which was the highest audience for the Pinstripe Bowl since 2013. The Liberty bowl which featured Texas Tech-Arkansas saw a 17% jump in viewership, drawing 4.2M, the highest since 2015. The Georgia Tech-Vanderbilt Birmingham Bowl brought in 4.1M viewers, a 52% increase from the previous year’s 2.7M, and the largest audience since 2014.
Other notable games were Navy-Oklahoma in the Armed Forces Bowl as 2.85M tuned in (+17% YoY) to watch Navy’s upset win over the Sooners. The Cactus Bowl featuring Kansas State and Rutgers attracted 3.5M, up 30% and the highest since January 2016. The Pittsburgh-Toledo game brought in 2.56M viewers (+15 YoY%), the most since 2019 for the Detroit Bowl. The Arkansas State-Bowling Green game had one of the largest increases as 1.7M tuned in, which was up 120%, the highest since 2018. Lastly, on Christmas Eve, the Hawaii Bowl which showcased South Florida-San Jose State, brought in 1.9M viewers, marking a 103% increase and the largest audience since 2019.
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BYU Proves Playoff Worthy In Alamo Bowl Win, Social Media Talks Playoff Snub
