Sugar Bowl TV ratings - down double-digits

Ha. Well it did guarantee that we will be ranked in the single digits going into next season, and that's all I care about.

How do they figure these ratings? By people leaving it on the same channel for so long or what about people with DVR?

Could also mean ESPN3 is being used more.  I'm a huge fan of ESPN3 on my TV via the XBox.  Or even on a laptop.  All kinds of awesome picture in picture features and the like.  The ratings services don't track streams, so who knows.  

Blame VaTech.  Their helmets don't have wings.

There are a couple of factors I believe led to the decrease in ratings.

1)  Overload of games on Jan. 2, 2012 when more viewers actually had the day off work and were free to watch

2)  Two Eastern Time Zone teams and the game started at 8:30pm.  Nevermind that it didn't end until just after midnight.  Many viewers I suspect had to work yesterday and today and that late start would tune more viewers out at the end of the game.  Nothing like killing the main market area for both teams.

3)  I know Michigan sold the majority of their tickets.  My last read on the Virginia situation was that they were having a hard time selling out tickets.  This would lead me to belive that more viewers were less excited about watching VT play. 

Just a couple of conclusions I have drawn on the matter. 

Scanning the crowd at the game, VT seemed to have quite a following.  After all of the ticket sales problems, I didn't expect that.

Congratulations Team 132!

Go Blue!

So I'm partially at fault. :(

I didn't watch (obviously), but I'm sure many people did.

for recuriting but also getting some exposure in primetime something that we have not had in a while. This is awesome news thanks for the post!

reason for the ratings to be down was VT.  I would have loved to see what Boise St or Ks St would have done for the ratings.

Hell no one knows what a Hokie is anyway.

This guy believes ratings would have been higher had his team been included...

He's popular...Nationally.

Did we win?

I think the general sloppiness of the game probably turned off some viewers.  If I'd been a neutral fan, I'd have probably turned it off at halftime, especially given that it was played on a weeknight.  

Kinesiologynerd's happiness was up by double digits.

I don't think it was sloppiness I think it was that Virginia Tech had a month to prepare for us, and were actually a better team than the team that played vs. clemson.  Don't listen to your Spartan coworkers who say that Georgia was a better team than VT.  They lost to Boise State, South Carolina, and LSU.  Their best win was against Auburn.   

I have watched about 80% of the games thus far on my dual-screen setup here,  which is off the Nielsen radar. I did, however, watch the Sugar Bowl on  the actual TV, so I tried to boost the ratings for the  game I actually, really cared about. Of course, karma will get me somehow - every third commercial will be an Allstate commercial as a result. 

Another factor - this was the first Sugar Bowl in decades that didn't have a top-10 ranked team. This certainly has an affect as well, especially since VT isn't traditionally a big draw for any part of the country. 

I watched the game, and as a Michigan alum and fan, was thrilled with the victory.

However, there are two reasons that I believe viewership is significantly down:

1. The date. When all the games were on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, you could gorge yourself, watching game after game. Once you are into the regular work week, it becomes much more difficult. For instance, I allowed my 10 year old to stay up and watch the entire game. I know he was very tired this morning.
2. The Broadcast Network (ESPN.) I am cheap. Living in the Chicago area, I get CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, & a slew of other local channels . . . for free. To get ESPN, it would cost me another $700 a year. For the Michigan games I want to see, I can go to the local bar, spend $20 - $30, and still end up way ahead.  I resented having most of the bowl games on ESPN. If all the games were on major networks, I'd watch more games. Here's the deal:  as a Michigan alum, I will gladly make the effort to find a place to watch the Sugar Bowl. But I'm not going to leave my house and my family to watch a ton of games I don't care that much about.

For the casual football fan, to have the TV on all day New Year's Day, flipping between CBS, NBC, & ABC, is no problem. However, to carve out time multiple nights, during the work week, and have to go out to a friend's house or a bar to catch a game between two teams I don't care about (WVa? Clemson? LSU? Alabama? Not going to happen.)

Wanting to watch bowl games is not enough for me to pony up for cable. Can I afford it? Of course. But I don't care enough about other teams. If I can watch most Michigan games, and also local pro teams, that's enough for me.

If I had been able to watch most of the BCS bowls on January 1, on major networks, I would have been added to the viewership numbers.

Last year's Sugar Bowl had some extra intrigue because the country knew OSU was starting players that had no business playing in that game.  But the whole greed, money, Tressel's "ethical" and convenient promise that you could play if you come back next year and sit out 5 games issue allowed it to happen. 

There was no drama leading up to this game other than people thinking Virginia Tech had no business playing in it.  And while we were the most improved team in country this year, the Big Ten being down again wasn't going to put up ratings like last year.  All things considered, a 6.3 isn't that bad. 

I thought having Michigan in would guarauntee a higher rating, but this is pretty abysmal.

Some past Sugar Bowls:

2010: 8.50 Cincy - Florida: Tebow's last game, makese sense...but Cincinatti??

2009: 7.80 Utah - Alabama: Curiousity over Utah I suppose?

2008: 7.00 Georgia - Hawai: Same? Still, a game with Hawaii outdrawing Michigan...

2005: 9.5 Auburn - Virginia Tech: Another Va Tech game much higher...

Considering Michigan fans put up the best  non-BCS rating of all time (9.13 at the Capitol One Bowl vs. Florida) I would have expected something similiar for our trip back to the big time. 

A lot of people watched the game on espn3, I'm pretty sure that was not factored into the numbers

put this game on CBS or ABC instead of espn on Jan1 and it would be much better ratings.

Uncompelling match-up to people who don't wear Maize or Maroon & Orange

It was a Tuesday night right after a lot of Americans just had to go back to work for the first day after break (like me). If it was any other big ten team vs Virginia Tech I wouldn't have watched it in all likelihood

There was a lot of people who were against this matchup. Obviously we were pumped up for it, but a lot of others look at it similarily to the Orange bowl tonight and don't really care.

M fans, Congrats on the win. For me, a win is a win is a win. MSU was for the most part dominated by UGA in our game (especially John Jenkins, Alec Ogletree, and Jarvis Jones) but in the end came out with a W. Embrace the Sugar Bowl win. Good for the seniors and good for the program.

The reason for the drop off in ratings is that people are fed up with the BCS. People are realizing that the BCS decisions have a lot to do with money and very little to do with football. There was a lot of national talk about this game in particular and how several smaller name yet higher ranked schools were passed over to pick 2 names that would fill up more bars and hotels. I am taking off my Spartan glasses for a minute (shocking, I bet) and speaking as a fan of the sport when I say I would love to have seen one of those teams in the game instead. Imagine the intrigue in a Michigan vs. Boise State game: Establishment vs. the anti-establishment. Or how about the heisman trophy winner against Bud Foster's hard hitting defense.

I think you get what I am trying to say. Some of these writers sound like they agree:

http://espn.go.com/college-football/bowls11/sugar/story/_/id/7422706/sug...

http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/13254/sugar-bowl-re...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/sports/ncaafootball/sugar-bowl-michiga...

Anyways, here's to hoping another team from Michigan will be winning in New Orleans this week.

Flame away I guess.

This is completely due to the move of the BCS games to cable.  I a good case study for is what happened to MNF when it moved from ABC to ESPN.  While the NFL did their best to give it a second tier schedule which didn't help, even the highest rated MNF cable games don't approach the broadcast numbers.  Being down 11% is about right since cable reaches about 15% fewer homes.   They get lower viewership by moving sporting events to cable, but make more money in the end. 
 

what about an 11 win MAC team or an 11 win Big East team.  Virginia Tech had 11 wins and we beat them we weren't even the worst 11 win team this year.

A lame ass rematch!!! Screw Bama they had their shot and lost... Boycott this game and let's prove a point