The overnight ratings for Monday’s BCS Championship Game are in and they are not good. In fact, they are historically bad, as Alabama’s 21-0 win over SEC-rival LSU drew a 13.8 rating on ESPN (via LA Times). That was the lowest rating championship game in the 14-year history of the BCS.
BCS Championship 2012: Ratings For Alabama-LSU Lowest Ever
The nation largely ignored a rematch of SEC foes, giving the BCS national championship its lowest overnight rating ever.
The championship game’s rating headlined what was generally a bad year for BCS bowls. The Rose, Sugar and Orange all saw dips in comparison to last year. Virginia’s 70-33 destruction of Clemson in the Orange Bowl drew at 4.5 rating, making it the worst-rated game in BCS history.
There were surely several factors at work that drove the ratings downward, at least for the championship game. The biggest may have been the nation’s disinterest in seeing two teams from the same conference meet for a second time this season. That the previous game was a defensive battle didn’t help matters either. Making matters worse was the lack of offense in this game and the fact that Alabama’s win was pretty well locked up early in the fourth quarter.
Last year’s BCS Championship between Auburn and Oregon was ESPN’s highest rated telecast ever, drawing a 16.1 rating.
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