‘Tis the season!
During a month of firsts, the place No. 17 BYU received a bit of the Big 12 championship, the basketball program landed the No. 1 prep recruit on the planet and the lads’s and ladies’s cross-country groups swept the nationwide championships — one thing else by no means seen earlier than is about to occur — and it has the whole lot to do with being seen.
More persons are about to look at the Cougars play soccer than at any time in historical past. That’s what a top-25, post-Christmas, prime-time matchup on community tv can get you, particularly if it’s in opposition to Colorado.
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The Buffaloes, led by head coach Deion Sanders, have been the ninth most-watched group in school soccer this season, with 9 video games televised by the mainstream networks NBC, Fox, CBS or ABC. BYU was the thirty sixth most-watched group with just one Fox recreation and the remainder relegated to ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN+ or FS1.
Large audiences may be discovered at any outlet, particularly if the matchup is intriguing (BYU-Utah drew 2.2 million on ESPN), however the networks nonetheless reign supreme. ESPN’s greatest viewers of 2024 watched the Florida State-Georgia Tech recreation (4.99 million). It was school soccer’s fortieth most-watched recreation of the season. However, the 39 video games forward of them have been on ABC, NBC, Fox or CBS.
BYU on ABC on a Saturday evening following Christmas is a lineup that hasn’t occurred earlier than, and it supplies a golden alternative for the Cougars to indicate up and present out, even when they take a trip on Colorado’s coattails.
The Buffaloes attracted 5.7 million viewers in opposition to Nebraska (NBC) and 6.2 million in opposition to Kansas (Fox). The added indisputable fact that Colorado options Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter and quarterback Shedeur Sanders (Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year), makes the Alamo Bowl must-see TV and virtually sure to blow previous final 12 months’s 3.93 million viewers that watched Arizona beat Oklahoma.
BYU is not any stranger to tv, however this time is totally different, and it’ll deliver a becoming finish to this system’s century anniversary season. Forty years in the past, the 1984 Cougars helped kick-start ESPN and the Cougars’ nationwide championship run with the community’s first dwell regular-season soccer recreation in opposition to No. 3 Pittsburgh.
In 1990, BYU’s upset of No. 1 Miami attracted 3.32 million viewers and gave ESPN its largest viewers for a school soccer recreation to that time. During the 2009 opening weekend, 2.8 million watched BYU upset No. 3 Oklahoma on ESPN.
Even as an unbiased for 12 years, the Cougars held their very own, drawing 3.75 million in opposition to Washington (2013), 3.7 million in opposition to Notre Dame (2012), 3.68 million vs. Utah (2015), 3.25 million vs. Michigan State (2016), 3.13 vs. Nebraska (2015) and three.1 million vs. Washington (2019).
The widespread denominators in these video games are energy convention opponents and community tv, aside from the 2013 Fight Hunger Bowl (ESPN) in opposition to the Huskies, which is BYU’s final post-Christmas look — till now.
With their very own membership in an influence convention, the Cougars (10-2, 7-2) delivered one of many shock tales in school soccer, ending tied for first place within the Big 12 after being picked thirteenth. Colorado (9-3, 7-2) was tabbed eleventh and so they additionally grabbed a share of the regular-season title.
For two groups who hail from the identical convention however haven’t confronted one another since BYU received the 1988 Freedom Bowl, they’ve lots to play for and to carry out in entrance of. Yahoo Sports ranks the Alamo Bowl fifth greatest among the many 39 bowls, together with the 4 first-round playoff video games.
There are loads of motivating elements for the Cougars to take their “A recreation” to San Antonio, together with an opportunity at an 11-win season, a top-15 end and a tone setter for subsequent 12 months; nevertheless, the larger image screams one thing a lot better — the Alamo Bowl is an opportunity for BYU to play in entrance of the most important tv viewers in its 100 years of soccer.
Now that’s one thing to indicate up for.
Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and present host for BYUtv/ESPN+. He co-hosts “Y’s Guys” at ysguys.com and is the creator of the youngsters’s guide “C is for Cougar,” out there at deseretbook.com.
