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College Football

ESPN shares New Year’s Six bowl ratings, up from 2020

SDS Staff

By SDS Staff

Published:

Ratings for the College Football Playoff semifinals were slightly down on New Year’s Eve, but the New Year’s Six bowl games did well as a whole.

ESPN PR shared viewership numbers for the NY6 bowls on Monday evening. Alabama (Cotton Bowl, CFP semifinal), Georgia (Orange Bowl, CFP semifinal) and Ole Miss (Sugar Bowl, NY6) were the 3 conference programs to play in NY6 bowl games for the 2021 season.

ESPN’s release notes the following SEC/NY6 highlights:

  • New Year’s Six Bowls Up 15 Percent Over 2020

  • Non-Semifinal NY6 Bowls Average 10.7M Viewers, Up 47 Percent Year-Over-Year and Nine Percent from 2019; Third Best Non-Semifinal NY6 on Record

  • The College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Capital One Orange Bowl between Georgia and Michigan netted 17.2 million viewers, peaking with 20.5 million viewers early in the action. The late Semifinal is the most-viewed non-NFL sporting event across any network, and top telecast across ABC and ESPN networks since last year’s CFP National Championship game.

  • The Allstate Sugar Bowl between No. 7 Baylor and No. 8 Ole Miss averaged 9.8 million viewers, peaking early in the action with 13.6 million viewers.

  • The College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic between Cincinnati and Alabama scored 16.6 million viewers, a six percent gain from Year 2’s early Semifinal (2015 Oklahoma/Clemson). Despite the scoring margin, the audience peaked with 18.2 million viewers late in the game.

SDS Staff

Saturday Down South reports and comments on the news around the Southeastern Conference as well as larger college football topics.

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