ATLANTA RATINGS
College football’s most watched bowl games on ESPN last week in the Atlanta TV market:
Bowl / Result / Atlanta rating
Sugar / Ohio State 42, Alabama 35 / 23.4
Rose / Oregon 59, Florida State 20 / 21.3
Belk / Georgia 37, Louisville 14 / 15.7
Orange / Georgia Tech 49, Mississippi State 34 / 14.4
Fiesta / Boise State 38, Arizona 30 / 8.3
Peach / TCU 42, Ole Miss 3 / 7.7
(Note: The rating is the percentage of TV households in the metro Atlanta TV market tuned in on average.)
Metro Atlanta posted sharply higher TV ratings than the national average for the semifinal games in the College Football Playoff last week.
Ohio State’s victory against Alabama in the Sugar Bowl drew a 23.4 Nielsen rating in the Atlanta market, while Oregon’s victory against Florida State in the Rose Bowl had a 21.3 rating here.
The rating is the percentage of TV households that tuned in on average.
Nationally, the Sugar Bowl had a 15.2 rating and the Rose Bowl a 14.8 for the ESPN telecasts. Those numbers translated to audiences of more than 28 million viewers nationwide for each game, the two largest audiences in cable television history, according to ESPN.
Behind the playoff semifinals, the next most watched bowl games in the Atlanta market were those involving local teams. Georgia’s victory against Louisville in the Belk Bowl posted a 15.7 rating here, and Georgia Tech’s Orange Bowl victory against Mississippi State posted a 14.4.
TCU’s rout of Ole Miss in Atlanta’s Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl drew a 7.7 rating here and a 3.4 nationally. The rating was hurt by a 28-0 halftime score and a 12:30 p.m. Wednesday kickoff.
The Birmingham, Ala., TV market posted the nation’s highest ratings for the playoff bowl games, as it often does for college football telecasts. The Sugar Bowl drew a 50.2 rating in Birmingham, meaning just over half of the market’s households watched Alabama’s loss. The Rose Bowl had a 39.6 rating in Birmingham.
Atlanta’s rating for the Sugar Bowl was the fourth highest among the 56 major markets outside the states of the participating teams. The Rose Bowl rating here was seventh highest outside the participants’ states.
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