Football fans throughout the country might recognize Ohio football come 2012, as last year’s team appeared on the ESPN family of networks six times and, in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, drew its highest-rated television appearance since 2009.
Ohio’s bowl showdown against Utah State drew a 1.7 overnight Nielsen rating, which was an improvement from the Bobcats’ 1.3 rating in last season’s R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl.
The 1.7 rating indicates that slightly more than 2.4 million viewers across the country tuned in to the Bobcats’ first-ever bowl victory.
As less than 30,000 people attended the game, Ohio Athletics welcomed the additional exposure.
“It’s immeasurable, probably,” said Dan Hauser, Ohio’s senior associate athletic director for external operations. “It’s such valuable exposure for our football program and the university overall.”
In each telecast on the ESPN networks, both competing schools are permitted to run a commercial free of charge. Ohio University had an advertisement during each of the Bobcats’ past six games, all of which were shown on an ESPN-operated station.
“Every single time, the university gets to run its message to attract students to this campus (and) expose millions and millions of people to this great, fine institution,” Hauser said.
Of the 35 bowl games played between Dec. 17 and Jan. 9, only nine involved two teams from conferences that do not have an automatic bid to a Bowl Championship Series game. Ohio’s victory was the second-highest rated of those games, behind Texas Christian’s win against Louisiana Tech, which drew a 2.1 rating.
The Bobcats’ victory drew a slightly smaller viewership than the 2010 Humanitarian Bowl, which was the forerunner of the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl in Boise. Northern Illinois defeated Fresno State in a game that earned a 1.8 rating.
Kevin McDonald, the bowl’s executive director, said he had his eye on Ohio throughout its 2011 campaign, knowing that other Mid-American Conference teams with stronger ties to the Detroit area might have been more attractive to the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl.
“We want to make sure we’re doing all we can if we’re not going to sell a lot of tickets from one of our teams that we put a matchup together that we feel like is going to be well-balanced,” McDonald said. “And that’s what we thought we had with Utah State and Ohio this year.”
Purdue’s win against Western Michigan in the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl also earned a 1.7 rating but drew 93,000 more viewers than Ohio’s bowl game. The remaining MAC teams that played in a bowl — Northern Illinois, Temple and Toledo — all had lower ratings than the Bobcats.
“The location of the bowl probably made television the most economical option for the fans,” Hauser said. “To see Ohio (play), it wasn’t a bowl location like going to Detroit or anything our fans here in the Midwest could make it to.”
Ohio’s 5:30 p.m. time slot on a Saturday, coupled with the team’s success this season, gave potential viewers reason to tune in, Hauser said.
“We had an outstanding season. We were going for our 10th win, which hasn’t been done but a couple times in our school’s history. We had a chance to win our first bowl game ever,” Hauser said. “I think those types of elements engage Ohio alums and fans.”
jr992810@ohiou.edu
