For more than 70 years and over half of its existence, college football’s bowl season has existed as a holiday tradition on American TV.
Imminent expansion of the College Football Playoff casts uncertainty over the future of this institution, which dates back to 1902 with the first installment of the Rose Bowl Game. As the decimation, if not the death of the 108-year-old Pac-12 Conference this year suggests, though, history isn’t enough to spare institutions in this fast-changing landscape.
Bowl games’ place in the overall ecosystem of college football teetered before the expansion of the Playoff to 12 teams, through a combination of oversaturation resulting in sub-.500 teams receiving bids, players opting out to avoid damaging their NFL draft stock, and general heightened importance placed on national championships over bowl titles.
Television ratings suggest the diminishing prominence of bowl games predates the four-team Playoff, however. As a TV product, bowls reached their apex a half-century ago: the Dec. 31, 1973 Sugar Bowl, in what remains the most-watched postseason game in college football history.
From the advent of bowls as a fixture of American holiday TV to this zenith 50 years and into the uncertain future wrought today, the following timeline tells the story of bowl season’s broadcast life.
1952 Rose Bowl Game and 1955 Gator Bowl
Some discrepancy exists as to what truly was the first nationally televised bowl game. A variety of outlets have, in recent years, cited the 1955 Gator Bowl as the first.
A full three years earlier, however, the 1952 Rose Bowl Game became the first nationally televised college football contest of any type to broadcast coast-to-coast via NBC. It predated the first NCAA Tournament game ever aired nationwide in two years.
One can perhaps be forgiven for overlooking the 38th edition of the Granddaddy of ‘Em All, played 50 years after the original incarnation, given the lopsided score. Illinois stomped Stanford, 40-7, in a fitting homage to the 1902 game. Michigan beat Stanford then, 49-0.
The Illini rout is noteworthy independent of its place in media history for Illinois trailing into the third quarter, however, before rolling off 34 straight.
As for the TV product, Bob Holbrook’s column in the Jan. 2, 1952 Boston Globe unintentionally foreshadows both the rise of blogging – covering a sporting event from hundreds of miles away from the event – and the present-day struggle ticket offices face wooing spectators away from their couch and into the stadiums.
Curious if Holbrook fielded accusations from any of his contemporaries accusing him of filing the above from his mother’s basement.
As for the 1955 Gator Bowl, it may not have been the first bowl game aired on nationwide television but it was the forefather of the SEC on CBS. Vanderbilt played Auburn in an all-SEC matchup for the 11th installment of the Jacksonville-based event.
The iconic intro music synonymous with CBS telecasts of the SEC was decades away from inception, though.
1960 Cotton Bowl Classic
The Cotton Bowl Classic integrated in 1948, well before Syracuse faced a Texas program that was another decade away from integrating its roster. That put the Cotton Bowl ahead of its postseason peer, the Orange Bowl, which did so in 1951.
A February 2021 essay from the Dallas Morning News provides a compelling look at the Cotton Bowl Classic’s place in the Civil Rights Movement, partially through the lens of the 1960 edition.
The 1960 Cotton Bowl Classic is noteworthy for providing a national stage to the first Black recipient of the Heisman Trophy, Syracuse running back Ernie Davis.
The 2008 biopic of Davis’ life and tragic death at just 23 years old, The Express, presents the 1960 Cotton Bowl as its cinematic climax despite Davis not winning his historic Heisman until the 1961 season.
CBS introduced fans across the country to the transformative Davis, who lived up to his billing and more. Ernie The Express ran for a touchdown carry and took an 87-yard scoring reception for a score to help lock up Syracuse’s national championship.
Davis’ run toward history on the first day of the new decade set an appropriate tone for the 1960s at large.
1970 Peach Bowl, 1971 Fiesta Bowl, and 2007 Fiesta Bowl
Mizlou Productions plays an indelible role in the growth and popularity of bowl season, having distributed many of the most memorable moments in the game’s postseason — including BYU’s incredible comeback to beat SMU in the 1980 Holiday Bowl – for almost two decades.
A circuitous route leads from Mizlou joining the college football fray in 1968 and broadcasting the Peach Bowl two seasons later, and reaches Boise State upsetting Oklahoma almost 40 years later in an iconic Fiesta Bowl.
The ‘70 Peach Bowl pits undefeated Arizona State against North Carolina. Frank Kush’s undefeated Sun Devils earned what was a rare opportunity for a program in the Western Athletic Conference at the time, facing a brand-name opponent in the postseason.
And, through TV distribution, Arizona State could capitalize on its Peach Bowl invitation in a long-term impactful manner. Bob Eger’s Arizona Republic report from Dec. 30, 1970 — appearing alongside the below cartoon, depicting Sparky The Sun Devil jabbing a Southern gent representative of UNC — explains:
“Mizlou Productions has set up a 122-station television network to beam the game to more than 85 percent of the nation’s TV sets,” Eger wrote.
Among those tuning in were the audience at Phoenix’s Veterans Memorial Coliseum in attendance for a nighttime Suns-Lakers NBA game. The Republic reported that the basketball contest was to be the second leg “of an unusual ‘doubleheader,’” with “screens…deployed in the arena by Suns management to allow viewing of the Arizona State-North Carolina Peach Bowl game from Atlanta at 6 o’clock.”
Suns fans weren’t the only “unusual” Phoenix-based demographic paying close attention, either. A committee seeking to start another Western bowl game — specifically one for the WAC champion — used the fledgling Peach Bowl’s blueprint as a model when presenting the Fiesta Bowl to the NCAA in 1971.
Part of that model included Mizlou Productions presenting the game to a national TV audience.
With Florida State accepting an invitation to face Arizona State in the inaugural Fiesta Bowl, Mizlou tabbed legendary NFL play-by-play man Ray Scott for the call. The Tampa Tribune reported the Fiesta Bowl’s reach extended to “more than 170 outlets” nationwide.
Fiesta Bowl brass wasn’t keen on the syndication model, though, openly courting a network broadcast partner come spring 1972. Via the Arizona Republic:
By 1975 and the game’s first-ever top-10 matchup — No. 7 Arizona State vs. No. 6 Nebraska — the Fiesta Bowl aired on CBS with Pat Summerall calling the action.
A little more than 30 years after that, the Fiesta Bowl aired on Fox in what could be the final spiritual successor to the game’s original stated purpose: Champion of the WAC Boise State earned the opportunity to prove its mettle against a brand-name opponent from a prominent conference in Oklahoma in one of the all-time classics of bowl season.
1973 and 2015 Sugar Bowls
Per 1973-74 Nielsen ratings, the whopping 25.3 number the Notre Dame-Alabama matchup produced on New Year’s Eve put the Sugar Bowl in company with the viewership M*A*S*H* garnered over the course of its season that same year.
For context as to the parallel’s significance, the series finale of M*A*S*H* in 1983 drew 106 million viewers. That’s almost as many Americans as were tuned into Richard Nixon’s 1974 resignation, which aired less than a year after the ‘73 Sugar Bowl.
The 1973 Sugar Bowl was indeed massive in terms of audience, setting a record that no bowl game before or since matched. Credit a variety of factors. With Notre Dame and Alabama, the contest featured programs that were already well-established football brands.
Each headed to New Orleans with unblemished records. Coupled with fellow undefeated Oklahoma (banned from the postseason for NCAA violations) and Ohio State each sporting a tie, the Sugar Bowl winner was virtually assured of the title — making the Sugar Bowl an ostensible National Championship Game.
Featuring a pair of already-solidified legends on the sidelines in Bear Bryant and Ara Parseghian, the game celebrating its Golden Anniversary in 2023 had all the ingredients for must-watch television.
The on-field product delivered with a 24-23 epic that saw multiple second-half lead changes.
Howard Cosell and Hall of Fame Oklahoma coach Bud Wilkinson being part of the three-man commentary team only adds to the significance of this Sugar Bowl as landmark TV.
That it aired when it did may even have lent credence to Bill Hancock’s derided insistence that Playoff semifinals on Dec. 31 would “change the paradigm of New Year’s Eve.”
Unfortunately for the Playoff, no paradigms have shifted. The New Year’s Eve semifinal bowl games have underwhelmed, via SportsMediaWatch.com:
- 2015 Orange Bowl (Oklahoma vs. Clemson) 9.1
- 2015 Cotton Bowl Classic (Michigan State vs. Alabama) 9.6
- 2016 Peach Bowl (Washington vs. Alabama) 10.7
- 2016 Fiesta Bowl (Ohio State vs. Clemson) 9.8
- 2021 Orange Bowl (Michigan vs. Georgia) 8.1
- 2021 Cotton Bowl Classic (Cincinnati vs. Alabama) 8.6
- 2022 Peach Bowl (Ohio State vs. Georgia) 9.8
- 2022 Fiesta Bowl (Michigan vs. TCU) 10.0
But whether airing on New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, or a late December Saturday, no semifinal has approached the viewership of the inaugural two.
Specifically, the 2015 Sugar Bowl between Ohio State and Alabama set the standard for Playoff bowl games that has never been approached since.
The Herculean 15.2 rating (edging out a still-impressive 14.8 for the Oregon-Florida State Rose Bowl Game) and 28.27 million audience blows away every semifinal since and exceeds every Playoff National Championship Game but the Alabama-Georgia overtime thriller to cap the 2017 season.
1982 Tangerine Bowl, 1983 Florida Citrus Bowl, and 1984 California Bowl
Given its role in college football’s postseason in the 21st Century, it’s a bit staggering to think that ESPN got its start carrying bowl games as a partner for the aforementioned Mizlou Network’s syndication.
Such was the case in the 1982 bowl season, however, when ESPN operated as a third-party distributor for seven of Mizlou’s broadcasts.
From the Feb. 11, 1982 Orlando Sentinel:
It wasn’t the first of the partnership, a distinction that belongs to the Independence Bowl a week earlier — ESPN’s first-ever live college football broadcast. However, the Tangerine Bowl was something of the crown jewel in the ESPN-Mizlou partnership, pitting a top 20-ranked Auburn against Boston College.
Each team featured a future Heisman Trophy winner — BC’s Doug Flutie in 1984, Auburn’s Bo Jackson in 1985 — and the Eagles went on a furious fourth-quarter rally that fell just short in a 33-26 final.
Renamed the Florida Citrus Bowl a year later, the game’s 1983 installment saw ESPN venture into exclusive broadcast duties for Tennessee’s come-from-behind, 30-23 defeat of Maryland.
A Knoxville News Sentinel feature on the 40th anniversary of the ‘83 Citrus Bowl goes deep into the contest, which featured future NFL stars Boomer Esiason and Reggie White on opposite sides.
Writes Adam Sparks:
But the Citrus Bowl, one of UT’s few national TV games during White’s career, exposed him to a wider audience. Just as Tennessee played Maryland on ESPN, the network announced that it had become the most widely watched cable channel in the country with a viewership of 28.5 million households.
And ESPN celebrated that milestone with a marathon of its best programming, including several replays of the Citrus Bowl over the holidays.
Coincidentally, the Citrus Bowl had acquitted itself well enough to move to network television and NBC the following year. But that hardly removed ESPN from the bowl-game racket.
The 1984 season is significant for the future Worldwide Leader capitalizing on the previous summer’s pivotal Supreme Court ruling, which laid the groundwork for today’s landscape.
While many of the changes to the sport as a direct result of NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma came gradually, the common lament that bowl season has been diminished recently with too many inconsequential games as a result of TV needing inventory may not be entirely accurate.
We single out the 1984 California Bowl in this timeline not because the ESPN-covered matchup of a Randall Cunningham-led UNLV rout of Toledo was particularly noteworthy or historic. Rather, ESPN’s first independently carried bowl of the transformational 1984 season prompted the following from Ray Finocchiaro’s “Inside TV’ column in the Dec. 15, 1984 News Journal:
Now, there are a few items that remind you this is an old column: DePaul being not just competitive at basketball but among the nation’s most highly ranked; Seattle in the AFC; the existence of the Kingdome.
However, a dismissive attitude toward pre-New Year’s bowl games? Timeless.
2001 Las Vegas Bowl
Pete Carroll’s first season as USC head coach ended with an unceremonious, 10-6 loss to Utah in the 10th Las Vegas Bowl. Projecting this as a springboard to one of the most influential dynasties of modern college football history would have taken a real leap of faith in 2001.
Likewise, forecasting the 2001 Las Vegas Bowl as a watershed moment for the direction of the postseason would have required going out on a narrow limb. But it was the first time that ESPN had owned and operated a bowl game. These days, the bowl season exists in large part to give ESPN valuable live sports programming in December. In 2023, ESPN Events owns 17 bowl games, including the HBCU national championship, and the Celebration Bowl. The lineup:
- Armed Forces
- Bahamas
- Birmingham
- Boca Raton
- Camellia
- Cure
- F1rst Responder
- Famous Idaho Potato
- Fenway
- Frisco
- Gasparilla
- Hawai’i
- Las Vegas
- Myrtle Beach
- New Mexico
- Texas
When the division of ESPN known today as ESPN Events got into the bowl business in 2001, then as ESPN Regional Television, the move generated little more than a two-paragraph brief in some publications. Now, it’s a direct through line to the bloated bowl season that we have today with 43 postseason matchups.
2006 Rose Bowl Game/BCS National Championship
In retrospect, the 2006 Rose Bowl Game may have marked the end of an era for college football in several key ways.
Arguably the best game of the 21st Century, if not all-time, the showdown beaten runaway No. 1 and No. 2 USC and Texas embodied the vision behind the Bowl Championship Series when it launched but rarely achieved.
This was 1991 Miami-Washington, a clash of the two clear-cut best teams previously unattainable due to bowl tie-ins, mixed with a heavy dash of the 1979 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Championship Game.
That contest, matching up Larry Bird and Indiana State with Magic Johnson and Michigan State, remains the most-watched contest in March Madness history.
That every NCAA Tournament game since has failed to live up to the ‘79 tilt isn’t an indictment of the Big Dance, which has grown into a cultural phenomenon worth billions in revenue and attracting millions of viewers.
Rather, it’s indicative both of the more captive audience of the 1970s pre-cable ubiquity, but also the transcendent attraction of Magic and Bird. Each already established themselves as a bona fide superstar leading teams at the pinnacle of the sport.
Such was the case for USC and Reggie Bush opposite Texas and Vince Young.
Everything aligned perfectly, including the backdrop of the Rose Bowl and the longtime voice of the sport, Keith Jackson, calling his final game.
All factors combined to make for a 21.7 rating with 35.6 million viewers. This Rose Bowl was, in many ways, the supernova-like finale of the traditional college football bowl model.
For one thing, the 2006 Rose Bowl Game was the last historic bowl to host a national championship contest. The next season saw the expansion of the BCS to include its previous alliance of bowls — the Rose, Sugar, Orange, and Fiesta — but with an additional “BCS Championship Game” rotated among the four venues.
Future BCS title games may have been played at the same locations, but they weren’t the bowls themselves.
Likewise, the initial decade of the College Football Playoff integrated traditional bowls to make up the semifinals. Championship games, however, have been played at the same sites as the L.A. Bowl and defunct Redbox Bowl.
The 2006 Rose Bowl Game, in that sense, marks the closure of a vital chapter in telling college football’s story. But what a way to go out.
