2011 BCS on ESPN Rating Summary

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2011 BCS on ESPN Rating Summary

Photo of Rachel Margolis Siegal Rachel Margolis Siegal Follow on Twitter October 4, 2011

Overall BCS Ratings Story

  • The five BCS games hold the top five audiences in ESPN history (excluding NFL)
  • Jan 1 was the highest-rated day in ESPN’s history, driven by Rose/Fiesta (4.3 coverage rating)
  • Jan 10 was the second highest-rated day in ESPN’s history (BCS title game, 3.9 coverage rating)
  • Dec. 27-Jan. 2 was the highest-rated week in ESPN history (2.2 coverage rating)
  • ESPN’s “reach” on January 1, 2011, was 63,535,000 viewers, an increase of 49 percent from New Year’s Day 2010 (42,747,000)
  • Bowl games on ESPN3 had more than 177 million minutes consumed, up 275 percent vs. 2010

Rose Bowl Presented by VIZIO (Jan. 1)

  • 13.1 coverage rating (11.3 US rating), 20.6 million viewers in 13.1 million households
  • Audience up eight percent from three years ago (19 million, 2008) and even with 2009 (20.6 million)
  • Averaged 71,436 viewers on ESPN3, and reached 214,000 unique viewers

Tostitos Fiesta Bowl (Jan. 1)

  • 7.1 ESPN rating (6.2 US rating), 10.8 million viewers and 7.1 million households
  • Won the night for all of TV – marking the highest rated show of the night on broadcast or cable
  • 33,679 viewers per minute and 121,000 unique viewers on ESPN3

Discovery Orange Bowl (Jan. 3)

  • 7.8 ESPN rating (6.7 US rating), 10.6 million viewers and 7.8 million households.
  • Highlight: Households viewership up over each of the last two years (7.819 million vs. 7.814 million for one percent from 2010, and 26 percent from 6.197 from 2009) and second highest household total over last five years
  • Rating up 25 percent from two years ago Orange Bowl (5.4) and virtually even (-1 percent) from 2010 at 6.8
  • 56,780 viewers per minute and 182,000 unique viewers on ESPN3

Allstate Sugar Bowl (Jan. 4)

  • 9.5 rating (8.2 US rating), 9.5 million households and 13.6 million viewers
  • 8.4 overnight rating was ESPN’s second-highest overnight rating for college football (trails only 2011 Rose Bowl Game — 11.7).
  • ESPN3 game was watched by more than 70,057 viewers per minute, 248,000 unique viewers and at the time was the most ever for a college football game on ESPN3

Tostitos BCS National Championship (Jan. 10)

  • Biggest audience in cable history (27.3M viewers; 17.7M households)
  • ESPN’s highest rating ever (17.8; 15.3 US rating and 9th of the 13 BCS title games)
  • Among men 18-34 – the game rated higher than 11 of the 12 games from 1999-2010
  • ESPN3 had more than 619,000 unique viewers – the most ever for a college football game and fourth all-time behind three 2010 FIFA World Cup contests (source: Adobe)
  • Usage in visits, page views and total minutes on the day on ESPN.com and the ESPN Mobile Web saw increases ranging from 26 percent to 60 percent across all categories.
Photo of Rachel Margolis Siegal Rachel Margolis Siegal Follow on Twitter October 4, 2011
Photo of Rachel Margolis Siegal

Rachel Margolis Siegal

A part of the Internal Communications team at ESPN, I began with the network in 2010 as part of the College Sports PR team. Always an avid sports fan and not an athlete – I grew up a huge fan of the Hartford Whalers, while also watching my brother compete at different levels. I became the manager of several high school sports teams and continued that hobby into college. While at Quinnipiac, I worked in the Sports Information Department, which led me to a summer internship at the New Haven Ravens, a AA baseball team, and an eventual job with the Athletic Communications Department at the University of Connecticut. After my five-year stint at Connecticut, I spent six years as Director of Communications at the BIG EAST Conference in Providence, R.I. before joining ESPN.
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