Worst Rose Bowl (TV ratings) Ever
- Thread starter leinbacker
- Start date
IWe all know that non-CFP bowls have declined in importance since the playoffs started. And, the game was played on. Monday afternoon when some, but not everyone had the day off as a holiday. The fact that it was the most watched no CFP game says a lot. Is it sad that it was the least watched Rose Bowl? Yes. But that has everything to do with the CFP and the dilution of the importance of bowls in general.
It's incredible that, when the first Rose Bowl broadcast took place, January 1, 1952, there were only 16.9 million TV sets in the US. That means that, if this year's 10.2 million viewers were the fewest ever, over 60% of all TVs were tuned to the Rose Bowl in 1952. I suppose all 1,125,000 in Chicago were tuned in to watch Illinois.
Most importantly, more people watching the Rose Bowl wanted Penn State to lose than for any other team in any other game this bowl season.
I was basing it on the OP's linked article: "The 2023 Granddaddy of Them All between Penn State and Utah saw only 10.2 million viewers on ESPN, the network announced Wednesday. Per The Athletic, that number makes it the least-watched Rose Bowl on record, "beating" the 13.6 million mark held by 2016's Stanford-Iowa matchup."
Maybe it was the least watched Rose Bowl on record with "The Athletic" which was first opened in 2016? They just don't have records of anything that happened before then?
Still can’t believe psu took a train ride for 6 days to play in the rose bowl. Then they were stuck in traffic? In 1923 omg. They were probably like, what is this back up of cars called.
Well, The Athletics's numbers come from ESPN. They also know that the highest viewing audience for the game was over 35mm.
The era of sports teams traveling by rail (roughly 75 years), especially in baseball, was a magical time. Old time players described the rails as the very best way to travel because of the camaraderie it helped build among teammates. They would hold “bull sessions” to talk baseball, learn what made each other tick and be better for it on the field. Coaches kept tabs on their players and sportswriters were able to cover teams more extensively as they traveled long distances with them on the same passenger cars. With western expansion to California in 1958 more teams began traveling by air and by the mid 60's rail travel in baseball was just a memory.
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I told myself the same, but the key point here is that we had the highest TV ratings for any non-CFP bowl. Historically, PSU’s TV numbers in bowl games have compared very favorably to those of other teams’. What happened this year doesn’t alter that narrative.
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Don't you think that networks sell commercial time based on anticipated viewership adjusted for date/time of a program? Maybe they'd be better off consulting this board beforehand, a lesson that PSU coaches have already learned.
Well the last time it happened should be a fair comparison. Penn State played USC on Monday, Jan 2, 2017, and 16 millions watched that. So a drop to 10 is meaningful. The combo of PSU being 3rd in the B1G, and Utah not being any kind of National draw undoubtedly factors in significantly.
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