BYU’s big Alamo Bowl win over Colorado draws 8 million viewers

BYU’s blowout win over Colorado drew a significant number of viewers.

ESPN said an average audience of 8 million people watched the Cougars win the all-Big 12 matchup over the Buffaloes on Saturday night. The audience for the game is the biggest for a game outside of the College Football Playoff or a New Year’s Six game since Michigan played Alabama in the 2020 Citrus Bowl.

Colorado has been a big ratings draw over the past two seasons since Deion Sanders became the team’s head coach. The Buffaloes were the darlings of the college football world at the start of that season and continued to draw strong audiences in 2024 as they finished in a four-way tie for first in the Big 12.

The Alamo Bowl was the final game in a Colorado uniform for both Heisman winner Travis Hunter and QB Shedeur Sanders. Both players could be top-five picks in the 2025 NFL Draft.

Colorado games consistently ranked among the most-watched games on a weekly basis in 2024, though the ratings were dominated by games in the Big Ten and the SEC. Over 5.6 million people watched Colorado’s game at Nebraska in Week 2, and over 6.2 million people watched the Buffaloes lose to Kansas in the penultimate week of the regular season. Colorado entered that game needing two wins over the final two weeks to clinch a spot in the Big 12 championship game.

Instead, the Buffaloes and Cougars each found themselves on the wrong side of the four-way tiebreaker atop the conference as Arizona State and Iowa State made the title game. The two teams played each other in the Alamo Bowl despite being in the same conference because of the Pac-12’s demise. The Alamo Bowl announced before the season that it’d pair a non-Oklahoma or Texas team from the 2023 Big 12 with a team from the 2023 Pac-12.

Saturday was a big day for bowl viewership despite the lack of a playoff game. The Pop-Tarts Bowl won by Iowa State over Miami drew 6.8 million viewers. That game was the lead-in on ABC to the Alamo Bowl.