Orange Bowl viewership up 26 percent from last year

If we learned anything from the college football season that just ended, it's that people would rather watch Iowa than Cincinnati. And not just Iowa people.

The Iowa-Georgia Tech Orange Bowl had a 26 percent increase in viewership over the Miami game of the year before, pitting Cincinnati and Virginia Tech.

Now, it should be noted the 2009 Orange Bowl was played on New Year's Day night after a long day of college games on the tube. The 2010 edition was on Jan. 5, the only game on television that night.

And more people watched the Sugar Bowl this year on New Year's Night, with Cincinnati, than saw the Orange Bowl. Of course, Cincinnati's opponent may have been the attraction, being Tim Tebow, Urban Meyer, and the Florida Gators. Yeah, Florida was probably the main attraction. I really think so.

The Orange Bowl had the same 6.8 rating as the Capital One Bowl, played at 1 p.m., Central time on Jan. 1, pitting Penn State and LSU. The Orange was sixth overall in this list compiled by the Birmingham News.

The ever-vigilant, ever-interesting Wiz of Odds picked up on the story. It links to bowl TV ratings from the past few years, as well. The graphic I'm using here was lifted from the Wiz, a college football Web site for winners.

I can hear the catcalls from Iowa fans about the Insight Bowl (Minnesota-Iowa State) having the lowest rating of all 34 bowls.

It's not a reflection on ISU or Minnesota, however. That game was aired by the NFL Network, which goes into far fewer homes than ESPN. The 0.4 rating the game got is the same as the Insight Bowl of '08, pitting Minnesota and Kansas. Last year, the NFL Network also aired the Texas Bowl. That got a 0.1.

Looking at all 34 numbers, I'm surprised how well the Rose Bowl. It wasn't that far behind the BCS title game, and it blew away the other BCS games. The Big Ten has television power, as Ohio State, Penn State, and to a lesser degree, Iowa, showed.

The Emerald Bowl, played on Saturday night Dec. 27, got a terrific 4.6 rating for a meaningless USC-Boston College Game. That was eighth-best of all bowls. That was over a point better than the Outback Bowl (Auburn-Northwestern) and the Sun (Oklahoma-Stanford).

Amazingly to me, the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl was 18th, though it was on Dec. 26 and had the ho-hum matchup of Marshall and Ohio. That did better than the Missouri-Navy Texas Bowl, the BYU-Oregon State Las Vegas Bowl, or the California-Utah Poinsettia Bowl.