The College Football Playoff, scourge of bowl games? If anything, viewership has never been higher

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6044405/2025/01/07/college-football-bowl-games-viewership/

But while bowl viewership is trending upward, in-person attendance at many games has gone in the opposite direction.

The Gator Bowl, which attracted crowds of 50,000-plus for decades, had 31,290 in the stands for last week’s Ole Miss-Duke matchup. And the Holiday Bowl, which downsized this season to San Diego State’s Snapdragon Stadium, drew the smallest crowd (23,920) in the bowl’s 46-year history for a Syracuse-Washington State matchup.

“To make ends meet, you need to have respectable crowds, and every now and then a crowd like the Alamo Bowl (64,261) had,” said Gator Bowl President/CEO Greg McGarity. “If you don’t have at least one team within a six-hour drive, you’re going to struggle in attendance.”

Going forward, though, that might not affect bowls to the extent it does now.

All parties recognize that most non-CFP bowls are primarily television programs now, which may eventually require a different business model. All 41 bowls’ current contracts align with the CFP’s, which terminates with the 2025 season. ESPN has already reached a six-year extension with the CFP, but the other bowls’ deals will come up for renewal in the coming year. All but the Sun Bowl (CBS) and Holiday Bowl (Fox) have ESPN as a partner.

That network will have to decide how much it values the non-CFP bowls, which generally produce larger audiences than any of its non-NFL programming that airs over the holidays.