Rose Bowl most watched non-NFL game since 2018
Peak at 32M viewers.
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:08 PM ^
I may rewatch it 32M times. Do those count too?
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:14 PM ^
Watched it from the stands yesterday and just watching it on tv for the first time now. It was electric in the stadium, the pagentry, the elation with thousands of Michigan brethren, the fireworks, the bands, the death machine flyover... but if you want to see the action there is no substitute for these incredible TV broadcasts.
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:18 PM ^
You all certainly did your part. The crowd really came through on the broadcast.
January 3rd, 2024 at 1:06 AM ^
I was yelling the whole time Alabama had the ball. I have no voice today.
January 3rd, 2024 at 2:27 AM ^
Me too
January 3rd, 2024 at 2:55 AM ^
Ditto
January 3rd, 2024 at 9:36 PM ^
I’m old and quiet but I made sure to be as loud as possible every time bama had the ball in our end zone. I was on the border and among a lot of their fans and they were all nice all game long and congratulatory at the end. They also only got hyped when the stadium played their country roll tide song after Mr brightside which was odd. We got one false start and the guy next to me yelled out ‘we got em!’
January 3rd, 2024 at 6:10 AM ^
i bet all that yelling got the shark worked up
January 4th, 2024 at 7:19 AM ^
Me too, and I wasn’t even at the game. :)
January 3rd, 2024 at 8:15 AM ^
Even on TV you could hear the thunder from the crowd when Corum scored that TD in OT.
January 3rd, 2024 at 7:19 AM ^
The incredible TV broadcast with 32M viewers also had an incredible 32M commercials. College football needs to fix this.
January 3rd, 2024 at 7:28 AM ^
Ummmm. How. In-game soccer style commercials?
January 3rd, 2024 at 11:16 AM ^
Fox is already doing this…but also running full length commercial breaks as well.
Fox Sports broadcasts are truly the worst of both worlds.
January 3rd, 2024 at 8:16 AM ^
Unfortunately, it's fixed for them. All they see is money. It's not about us.
January 3rd, 2024 at 1:04 PM ^
Meh, a CFB playoff game that went to OT, where a total of 8 plays were run, and 5+minutes of timeouts occurred between the 2nd from last play to the last play (injury timeout, Michigan timeout, Bama timeout) lasted a total of 3 hours 32 minutes from kickoff to victory.
I think we're all programmed to expect that. What I will never understand is TD + XP or FG, commercials, kickoff (touchback), commercials. That should be illegal.
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:11 PM ^
That’s a lot of people with cognitive dissonance. It’s amazing when spoon-fed narratives get exposed while millions are watching together live. That was a feast for the eyes. Michigan vs everybody.
January 3rd, 2024 at 7:50 AM ^
For sure, a lot of hate watching going on. Gotta love it.
January 3rd, 2024 at 8:21 AM ^
I think a lot of people were hate watching Alabama. Whole bunch of folks are sick of the SEC and want to see a non SEC champion for a change.
Now that it's Michigan vs. Washington in the final though, these 3rd party fans will mostly cheer for Washington / against Michigan.
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:14 PM ^
Holy shit, wasn't "The Game" hyped as being the most watched CF game earlier this year at 19 million?
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:19 PM ^
Most watched FOX CFB game
January 3rd, 2024 at 6:16 AM ^
It was the 2nd highest The Game (2006 is the most watched college game ever, iirc), and 3rd highest overall. Only LSU/Alabama 2011 was higher than this season's The Game.
January 3rd, 2024 at 11:04 AM ^
Regular season. Rose Bowl playoff game is a different animal.
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:15 PM ^
I love it, doesn't surprise me at all, 2 of the biggest brands and top 2 winningest teams of all time.
Gotta win next week to put more distance between us and Bama....and osu... and Texas... and to hell with notre shit.
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:17 PM ^
People like entertainment.
Michigan is entertaining.
Profit.
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:23 PM ^
It was the most watched game at work today also.
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:27 PM ^
There are currently 11 teams in the B1G who are mooching off us…
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:52 PM ^
For those at the game, what % seemed to be UM fans?
Seemed like we had a majority but wasn't sure since I also saw a lot of red
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:59 PM ^
My rough estimate was at least 60-40 but it’s hard to tell because the red really pops and makes it potentially seem like more Bama fans were there than in reality so could have been more like 70-30
January 3rd, 2024 at 12:04 AM ^
It seemed to me that it was about 65-70% Michigan fans. We overheard one Bama fan we walked by telling his friend that "it's a fucking away game".
January 3rd, 2024 at 1:08 AM ^
I felt like it was at most 60% Michigan. We were definitely the majority, but Alabama was well represented.
January 3rd, 2024 at 8:22 AM ^
Good stuff. I think it made a difference that Bama didn't play a "neutral site" bowl game in their back yard. They're always playing in sec country or Jerrys world.
January 3rd, 2024 at 12:05 AM ^
Somewhere between 60/40 to 66/33 Mich/Bama. We definitely had more fans in the stands and the Alabama sections were very quiet for big portions of the game. I honestly think them going second but being forced to play towards our end zone made a difference. It was LOUD on our side.
January 3rd, 2024 at 12:18 AM ^
I will guess 60/40. Although a lot more Michigan fans in the bama side than vice versa (resale prices for bama side were $150-200 less per ticket) so maybe got a little closer to 2:1.
But it was loud for both fan bases depending upon the momentum. Didn’t feel like a neutral site. Just an epic experience.
January 3rd, 2024 at 12:38 AM ^
Seemed closer to 70/30 (or more) for the good guys when looking at how many stayed for the entire trophy presentation.
January 3rd, 2024 at 6:48 AM ^
Me too, though my estimate might be based on seeing the world thought a maize-&-blue lens.
January 3rd, 2024 at 9:39 PM ^
Outside the stadium it was 10-1 M. I was a little disappointed that once in the stadium we were only 60-70% of the fans.
January 3rd, 2024 at 12:06 AM ^
I have been to a few great games at the Rose Bowl but I do not recall it ever being as loud as it was yesterday late in the game. The crowd was incredible for both teams. Fantastic experience magnified by the ending! It was great to watch the main broadcast version this morning. Recorded all versions of the broadcast so still have a few more to go. Should be a great week of viewing while we wait for Monday night. Already can’t wait!
January 3rd, 2024 at 1:10 AM ^
January 3rd, 2024 at 12:22 AM ^
It's a Michigan thing.
January 3rd, 2024 at 12:53 AM ^
The playoff would be well-served to figure out how its Sugar Bowl TV conundrum, however. Thanks to the length of the Rose Bowl, the Sugar Bowl didn’t kick off until after 9 p.m. ET. The late kickoff time likely led to lower ratings than last season’s Fiesta Bowl. 21.7 million people watched TCU’s win over Michigan a year ago on New Year’s Eve.
Yeah, that's it, must have been the late kick off on why less people watched the Sugar Bowl this year than watched the Fiesta Bowl last year. /s
January 3rd, 2024 at 11:39 AM ^
Kicking off a football game at 9 ET on a work night - that's going to drag down ratings, it just is.
I know MNF kicked at 9 ET for decades, from the 1970s to the 2000s, but society as a whole just doesn't do the late nights as much any more.
A partial solution would be the Rose Bowl kicking off at 1:30 PM local (4:30 ET). But the folk in Pasadena won't go for that at all, the 2 PM kick time is "sacred" in their eyes. Add in all the commercials, and you get a non-overtime Sugar Bowl ending at 1 AM ET.
January 3rd, 2024 at 2:35 AM ^
We are America's Team. We were doubly so since we played Bama.
January 3rd, 2024 at 4:14 AM ^
Most-watched games so far this year:
Michigan/Alabama, 27M <--- most-watched non-NFL sports event in US since 2018
Michigan/Ohio State, 19M
Washington/Texas, 18M
Alabama/Georgia (SEC Champ. game), 17M
2018 Alabama/Georgia Nat. Champ. game, 28M
January 3rd, 2024 at 6:03 AM ^
This is why we need to make a credible threat to leave the conference. We need to shop these numbers to the SEC and see what Sankey would be willing to pay to make those games a more regular occurrence.
January 3rd, 2024 at 10:44 AM ^
While it makes sense for many reasons to be in BIG, the members of this conference unanimously attempted to sabotage Michigan's run to a national title. How can they be trusted? They follow OSU and that school will do ANYTHING to get back on top.
January 3rd, 2024 at 11:58 AM ^
Michigan will not go to a conference where its academic peers are Mississippi State, Ole Miss and South Carolina. While there are some good schools in the SEC (Vanderbilt, especially) from a cultural and academic perspective I just don't see how Michigan meshes with that conference at all.
And besides the SEC, where are you going to go? The ACC could make sense from a cultural and regional perspective. Academic as well, but they're going to make a lot less money, and that's just not in the cards for Michigan.
The only solution may be like what Sam Webb has suggested, to just make their own conference. Do something like partner up with ND, approach schools like Texas, USC, schools who don't necessarily have any real loyalty to the conferences they're about to join beyond the loyalty to the almighty dollar, and see if you can create your own conference out of something like that. Maybe OSU has to come along too in order to make it work, but you can leave everyone else who stabbed you in the back behind and watch them wither and die on the grapevine.
But even if Michigan wanted to do that, you've got to make schools like ND, USC and Texas WANT to leave their current positions. Which.....good luck?
January 3rd, 2024 at 12:09 PM ^
I agree that they won't leave Big Ten for many reasons. But it is hard to feel "part" of conference when the other schools clearly want to push you down.
EDIT: I only saw the first paragraph of your post on my phone. Totally agree with all you wrote!
January 4th, 2024 at 12:08 AM ^
Big 10 as an organization and several other "fellow" Big 10 athletic departments want to assassinate Michigan. Both its football program and the overall school's reputation.
There's no fit that worse than that. Staying is asking to get knifed in the kidneys, again.
I don't think academic fit matters much for football. Big 10 is an athletic conference. Those other football departments and fans aren't our collaborators on academic research. But even if I'm wrong about that --
There isn't much choice. Pac 12 is gone. Big 12 has diminished into a lesser conference. ACC is a lesser conference (especially in terms of media money), and it will disintegrate after FSU leaves anyway.
College football at the top level is the SEC and Big 10. One would love Michigan to join. The other wants to murder Michigan.
The Big 10 has and will use the foulest techniques it has -- slander, smears, coordinated media hits, leaking confidential info, persecuting prior to due diligence, taking actions timed to cause maximum harm -- to further its vindictive goal.
Michigan should not be a willing patsy. It should tell the Big 10 to fuck off, and Michigan should go to the SEC.
January 3rd, 2024 at 6:09 AM ^
The championship game Monday night won't sniff these numbers. The SEC fanbase will likely have a sparse turnout to watching that game as they are all butt-hurt with no SEC team in final (gasp..). Even the phallus looking man Pawl said he won't watch it (even though he will as that is his job).
January 3rd, 2024 at 7:17 AM ^
I could hear both bands on TV and less piped in DJ music. That may be TV production but it sounded more like an old school college game.