You shouldn't give VT so much grief. In the 2nd half of the Orange Bowl, there were no Clemson fans to be found...

(01-05-2012 12:39 PM)WacoBearcat Wrote:  Sugar Bowl TV ratings suck.

http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2012/01/...-bcs-bowl/

I guess that VT more national interest and fans that travel bit didn't work out so well. Only those who were making the decisions thought this and I'm so glad that people tuned out.

WVU stomping ESPiN's darling conference, the ACC, didn't help the Orange Bowl's ratings any...

Orange Bowl Earns Horrible 4.5 Overnight on ESPN

So the Orange is the lowest rated ever, the Sugar is the 3rd lowest BCS ever, and the Rose was at it's worst in years. Not a banner year for ratings other than the Fiesta so far.

(01-05-2012 01:50 PM)CollegeCard Wrote:  So the Orange is the lowest rated ever, the Sugar is the 3rd lowest BCS ever, and the Rose was at it's worst in years. Not a banner year for ratings other than the Fiesta so far.

Not too shocking. The Fiesta Bowl was the only game with a legitimately great matchup. The Rose Bowl had a good matchup, but not as good as the last 3 years (#3 TCU vs. #5 Wisconsin last year, Ohio State involved the year before and Penn State-USC the year before that). Both the Sugar and Orange Bowls featured games with both teams ranked lower than 10, so there wasn't much to distinguish them from the Outback Bowl (which ended up with a higher rating than the Orange), while the upcoming Cotton Bowl is actually a better game on paper.

Of course, no one should think that the takeaway by TV and bowl executives will be, "Wow - I wish the Sugar would have taken Boise State instead." Instead, it will be, "We need to change the system where the BCS bowls can take 3 or 4 SEC teams. If the Sugar Bowl was Arkansas vs. Michigan, that would've been gangbusters."

You're wrong, Frank. The Fiesta Bowl is the only BCS game that ESPiN actually promoted - outside of the BCS Championship...

ESPiN spent the time prior to these games telling the entire nation they were irrelevant, bad matchups, matchups of undeserving teams, etc. When the media spends the time prior to a game telling everyone not to watch it, is anyone really surprised when almost nobody watches the games when they're played?

If so, they're morons...

People rip on cincy but we travel well to bowls....15K easily to Liberty

We took 30 to the Sugar and probably 20 to the Orange