Context & Clarity: Breaking down the 2023 Celebration Bowl TV ratings

The Celebration Bowl between Florida A&M and Howard University marked the end of another HBCU football season full of top-tier performances, rivalries renewed, and discourse about the future of the sport at the black college level. Florida A&M found themselves victorious in a 30-26 game over the Bison and claimed the title of the 2023 Black College National Championship. But that isn't what the discourse has been about the past 24 hours.

Various sports media websites published the Nielsen ratings returns for college football bowl games that were played on December 16 and the Celebration Bowl, which usually boasts 2 million+ viewers in its 12 PM EST timeslot on ABC, posted a 1.5 million viewership number and a 0.9 rating. Discourse and narratives about the viewership decrease have persisted since the disclosure of the numbers, which is a 37% viewership drop from last year's game drew 2.4 million and featured Deion Sanders in his final game coaching Jackson State before his departure to Colorado.

Narratives have festered since yesterday afternoon. Some have placed blame on Howard & Florida A&M, claiming that the viewing audience wasn't interested in seeing two football teams that happen to be attached to the two biggest HBCU brands in America. Some used the number to embolden their narrative against the Celebration Bowl and for the NCA FCS playoffs, diminishing the exposure and monetary benefit of the game to call for HBCU teams to line up against other competitive FCS teams. Some signal that there's an overall problem with the game and that drastic changes need to be made.

However many folks engaged in the discourse around the Celebration Bowl, while well-intentioned, lack the proper context around the 1.5 million viewership number. So, as the dust has settled on both the Celebration Bowl weekend as well as the discourse on the television ratings for the game, let's put the numbers in proper context.

1.5 Million Viewers Isn't A Bad Number, It's Great Actually

Lost in the discussion about the Celebration Bowl television viewership is 1.5 million people watching a television product in 2023 is a great thing. Is it the 2.4 million that the game drew last year? No, the viewership number was lower. However, the fact that the Celebration Bowl drew as many viewers as it did with limited promotion by ESPN outside of casual mentions during other college football games and a once every ten-minute appearance on the score ticker at the bottom of the screen on the ESPN family of network channels should be applauded.

It's a testament to how the Celebration Bowl, brought to life in 2015, has grown to be a tentpole event on the HBCU Calendar. It also gives us a great barometer of what proper promotion could do to further grow the reach of the game beyond its current capacity in years to come.

But, we can also look at the game in a more literal sense. Even with the lower-than-expected viewership, the Celebration Bowl was still the third most-watched college football game of the day amongst both FBS and FCS games.

Source: Sports Media Watch

The Celebration Bowl number far outpaced the two FCS Playoff games that were played on Saturday. The Celebration Bowl was also able to secure prime network real estate that isn't typically afforded to the FCS Playoffs until the FCS Championship. North Dakota vs. South Dakota State aired on ABC on December 9th and secured 1.09 million viewers with the Army vs. Navy game (7.18 million, 3 PM EST) as its only competition.

Despite the competition, the Celebration Bowl had a solid viewership number

Speaking of competition, the 2023 Celebration Bowl surely went up against a lot of it. For the third year in a row, the Celebration Bowl wasn't the first bowl game played on the first Saturday of the Bowl Season. Since 2021, ESPN has aired a bowl game that starts at 11 AM EST, an hour earlier than the Celebration Bowl's 12 PM EST start time. Although the Celebration Bowl viewership number has far outpaced the viewership for the 11 AM EST Bowl games, those Bowl games have drawn significant viewership that could've drawn non-HBCU football fans away from the festivities.

Source: 2021, 2022, 2023

Even more substantial, there has been an NFL Saturday game played on the same day as the Celebration Bowl since 2022. The only occurrence since 2015 that this has happened outside of 2022 & 2023 has been in 2019, which resulted in the second-lowest Celebration Bowl viewership number since this year.

Source (NFL Numbers): 2019, 2022, 2023

Of note, however, is the fact that the most viewed Celebration Bowl (2016) faced no direct competition (11 AM-1 PM) from a bowl game or Saturday afternoon NFL Game.

Based on the numbers provided, it's reasonable to deduce that earlier Celebration Bowl games benefitted from limited competition from other collegiate and NFL football games, with the 12 PM EST timeslot being prime real estate for both die-hard HBCU football supporters, individual supporters of the schools represented in the game and non-HBCU fans/sidewalk fans that watch all games available during bowl season.

The Deion Sanders Effect Mattered, But In Context

When reviewing the television viewership data, even what's presented in the previous section, you will see a glaring piece of data that is interesting. While 2019 & 2023 suffered in viewership against the NFL broadcast aired in that same timeslot, The 2022 number remained strong considering its competition. That edition of the Celebration Bowl went up against a historic 33-point comeback by the Minnesota Vikings against the Indianapolis Colts on NFL Network that started airing at 1 PM EST. The reason for that strong number was Deion Sanders.

Last year's Celebration Bowl saw Deion Sanders coach his final game at Jackson State before his departure to coach the Colorado Buffaloes. The storyline around the game was apparent: Will Sanders leave the HBCU football world with a Black College National Championship? The game drew massive media attention because of that story and certainly brought new viewers that were reflected in the 2.4 million number.

However, there is a noticeable dip in the numbers that needs to be explored. A caveat of the 2021 edition of the game is that the Jackson State vs. South Carolina State matchup didn't face NFL competition and enjoyed a 1 million+ viewership advantage over the Boca Raton Bowl.

However, the 2022 Celebration Bowl did suffer slightly. There is a 7% drop between the 2021 viewership number of 2.6 million and the 2022 viewership of 2.4 million. The drop is minuscule but one could reasonably deduce that the loss of roughly 200,000 viewers correlates with the airing of the Vikings vs. Colts game.

Findings & Conclusion: We're Gonna Be Alright

In the discussion of the Celebration Bowl and the television viewership that the game has drawn, context matters. While the 1.5 million number is great, albeit a drop from previous editions of the game, it faced stiff competition from the NFL hosting Saturday tripleheader on NFL Network that coincides with the Christmas Holidays as well as slight competition from 11 AM EST Bowl Games.

Even a deeper dive into the numbers finds that the highest-rated editions of the Celebration Bowl (Particularly 2016 and 2021) enjoyed limited competition in its timeslot. Consequentially, the two lowest-rated versions of the games (2019 and 2023) faced significant competition from NFL games aired at 1 PM EST.

So, long story short, we're going to be alright HBCU family.