Time for the first Sports Media Notebook of 2015. Let’s see what news we can squeeze for this edition.
NEWS
First, ESPN saw some good news for the first half of its so-called “New Year’s Six.” The ratings were good for the Peach, Orange and Fiesta Bowls.
College Football: First Half of “New Year’s Six” Delivers ESPN Most-Viewed New Year’s Eve Tripleheader on Record
Orange Bowl ESPN’s Most-Viewed New Year’s Eve Postseason Game on Record
Each New Year’s Six Telecast Sets Record for Respective New Year’s Eve Timeslot
ESPN’s college football tripleheader on Wednesday, Dec. 31 – the first three telecasts of the new College Football Playoff “New Year’s Six” format – delivered the most-viewed and highest-rated New Year’s Eve tripleheader on an ESPN network on record (since 1990). The three postseason bowls – Peach, Fiesta and Orange – combined to average 7,116,000 viewers and a 4.3 HH US rating, marking increases of 53 percent (vs. 4,648,000) and 54 percent (vs. 2.8), respectively, over the 2013 tripleheader.
In addition, each of the postseason bowls – all of which are part of the College Football Playoff semifinal rotation – delivered the largest audience for a New Year’s Eve game on an ESPN network in the respective timeslot.
“The first New Year’s Eve triple header in the new College Football Playoff era on ESPN generated our largest New Year’s Eve college football audience ever, delivering on our goal of reclaiming the New Year’s holiday for college football fans,” said Burke Magnus, ESPN senior vice president, programming & acquisitions.
- ESPN’s Orange Bowl at 8:30 p.m. ET – No. 12 Georgia Tech beating No. 7 Mississippi State 49-34 – averaged 8,935,000 viewers (based on a 5.0 US rating), making it the most-viewed New Year’s Eve game on ESPN on record. The contest delivered 257,000 live unique viewers, average minute audience of 83,000 and 16,600,000 live minutes viewed on WatchESPN.
- ESPN’s Fiesta Bowl at 4 p.m. – a 38-30 No. 20 Boise State victory over No. 10 Arizona – averaged 7,406,000 viewers and a 4.6 US rating. On WatchESPN, the Fiesta Bowl generated 292,000 live unique viewers, an average minute audience of 75,000 and 17,400,000 live minutes viewed.
- ESPN’s Peach Bowl at 12:30 p.m. – No. 6 TCU defeating No. 9 Ole Miss 41-3 in a contest that featured a 28-0 halftime lead – averaged 5,013,000 viewers and a 3.4 US rating. The bowl posted 317,000 live unique viewers, an average minute audience of 87,000 and 17,800,000 live minutes viewed.
Metered Markets
Birmingham was the top market for all three telecasts, averaging a 23.0 rating for the Orange Bowl, a 16.3 for the Fiesta Bowl and a 14.5 for the Peach Bowl. Rounding out the top five markets for each bowl:
- Orange Bowl: Atlanta (14.4), Memphis (13.7), Greenville (11.3) and Knoxville (10.3)
- Fiesta Bowl: Phoenix (10.2), Memphis (9.9), Columbus (8.4) and Atlanta (8.3)
- Peach Bowl: Memphis (11.3), Austin (8.9), Atlanta (7.7) and Oklahoma City (7.0)
We expect to see some even better numbers for the Rose and Sugar Bowls, the first-ever College Football Playoff Semifinals.
Linkage
After seeing glitches for the World Cup, you would think ESPN would realize that people would want to watch the Rose Bowl on WatchESPN and the demand caused the app to go down for a time on Thursday. Matt Verderame at Awful Announcing has details.
Richard Deitsch at SI’s MMQB site has his NFL Media Awards.
Shameless plug time. If you haven’t seen them yet, here are my NFL TV Awards, plus I have Part I and Part II of my annual Big Dozen Sports Media Stories of 2014 and finally, my 2015 Sports Media Predictions.
At Sports Media Watch, Paulsen provides his own set of sports media predictions.
Mike Reynolds at Multichannel News says 2014 wasn’t cable’s best year, but ESPN topped all networks as far as viewership is concerned.
Mike Cardillo of the Big Lead recaps the Year that was Mike Francesa.
Richard Sandomir of the New York Times lists his Top 10 sports movies of all-time.
Richard also has some thoughts on the new movie, Foxcatcher.
Barry Jackson at the Miami Herald has his best and worst in sports media for 2014.
Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News has his weekly media column.
With yesterday being New Year’s, we didn’t have any press releases so we don’t have any News You Can Use today, but expect to see some in the Weekend Edition of the Notebook coming Saturday. Enjoy your Friday.
