Instead of popping champagne bottles in Bristol, ESPN executives are pouring out the mayo, doing snow angels in Cheez-Its, and eating their own life sized Pop Tarts to celebrate the 2025-2026 bowl season.
Bowl games have become a popular topic of conversation with an era of the expanded College Football Playoff. The movement of coaches, players opting out, and the overall chaos facing the sport has left many voices wondering if the bowl season outside the CFP still has a place in college football.
But this winter, football fans answered that question with an enthusiastic yes.
According to ESPN, the network saw its best collection of bowl games since the 2015-2016 season. It was led by the Citrus Bowl and Pop Tarts Bowl with Texas-Michigan drawing 9.1 million viewers and BYU-Georgia Tech scoring 8.9 million. Those were the most watched bowls outside the CFP or New Year’s Six since the 2019-2020 bowl season.
Overall, bowl games on ESPN averaged 3.1 million viewers, up 13% from last year.
ESPN’s coverage of the 2025-26 Bowl Season delivered substantial year‑over‑year gains across non‑College Football Playoff (CFP) games, highlighted by record highs, multi‑year bests and two of the most‑watched non‑CFP/New Year’s Six bowls in recent years.
Across 33 non‑CFP bowls on ESPN networks, average viewership was 3.1 million, up 13 percent year‑over‑year, marking the highest non‑CFP bowl average since the 2015-16 season. Four bowls set all‑time audience records, while 10 reached at least a five‑year high and eight hit a 10‑year high.
The Cheez‑It Citrus Bowl (9.1M) and Pop‑Tarts Bowl (8.7M) were the two most‑watched non‑CFP/New Year’s Six bowls since the 2019-20 season. The Citrus Bowl delivered its best audience since the 2019 season, while the Pop‑Tarts Bowl posted its best viewership since 1991.
Of course, as with any year-over-year comparison in ratings, the caveat has to be included that Nielsen’s new Big Data measurement system has favored sporting events seeing increases in viewership. However, that doesn’t completely discount the narrative that bowl season is still thriving even amidst an unprecedented era of uncertainty around college football. Four bowl games set new viewership records on ESPN – including the Pinstripe Bowl, LA Bowl, First Responder Bowl, and Frisco Bowl.
If anything, bowl season leaning into the fun and games from mayo baths to sacrificial Pop Tarts has only added to the experience. And although there may be too many of them and they may not mean as much in the grand scheme of anythings, college football fans will still show up to watch.
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