The Sheraton Hawaii Bowl and Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic were seen by 17.8 million unduplicated viewers this Christmas season, according to the events’ owner, ESPN Regional Television.

The total was down from nearly 25 million in 2010, possibly due in part to the NFL games played that day and the return of the NBA in ’11.

The Dec. 24 Hawaii Bowl football game matching Southern Mississippi and Nevada on ESPN had “net reach” viewership of 13,468,000 viewers. The Diamond Classic basketball tournament on ESPN2 that sandwiched it, running Dec. 22, 23 and 25, reached 5,864,000 million viewers. Both figures include the live showing and replays. Duplicated viewers are purged from the total.

Net reach is defined as the number of different viewers who took in some portion of the event.

“We are very excited that the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl and the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic reached approximately 17.8 million viewers during the holiday season,” said David Matlin, executive director of the two events. “It is a great opportunity for our island state to shine, to a very cold national television audience, with many beautiful scenic shots coming from the 50th state.”

The NCAA requires bowls to average 25,000 in attendance over a rolling three-year period or risk losing certification. The Hawaii Bowl drew 41,084 in 2010 and 19,411 in 2011 and would need 14,541 to reach the benchmark for the 2010-12 cycle.

Meanwhile, the good news about the University of Hawaii’s football-season-ending 41-20 loss to Brigham Young on ESPN2 was that few people saw it.

The Dec. 3 loss that doomed the Warriors to a 6-7 season and ended their bowl hopes averaged a 0.3 rating and was seen by 302,000 households, an ESPN spokesman said.

It was the smallest audience for a UH game on one of the main ESPN platforms — ESPN or ESPN2 — in a decade.

Part of the reason for the drop was that portions of the UH-BYU game went up against the Atlantic Coast Conference championship (Virginia Tech-Clemson) on ESPN as well as the Big Ten title game (Wisconsin-Michigan State) on Fox and the San Diego State-Fresno State game on CBS College Sports.

It was UH’s last scheduled ESPN home appearance as a member of the Western Athletic Conference.