As University of Hawaii football coaches head back out on the recruiting trail, they have a widely circulated calling card, the SoFi Hawaii Bowl win over Brigham Young, to point to.
The 38-34 comeback victory on Christmas Eve attracted the largest TV audience of any Rainbow Warriors game in 11 years, 2.43 million on ESPN, according to Nielsen numbers announced Friday.
“I think that (audience) was a reflection of the matchup and a reflection of the exciting game and conclusion,” said Pete Derzis, senior vice president, college sports programming and events at ESPN, which owns and operates the game. “People really stayed with us because it was a really exciting college football game.”
UH recaptured the lead with 1 minute, 17 seconds remaining and then thwarted a BYU comeback attempt with an interception with 25 seconds left.
The viewership doubled UH’s 2018 Hawaii Bowl appearance against Louisiana Tech and was the largest audience for the ’Bows since the 2008 Hawaii Bowl, when 4.41 million tuned in to see Notre Dame’s 49-21 Christmas Eve victory.
The most-watched game in UH history was a 41-20 loss to Georgia in the 2008 Sugar Bowl, which drew 11.7 million viewers.
“We’re very pleased with the SoFi Hawaii Bowl numbers and the audience that stayed with us,” Derzis said. “Even if you didn’t have a dog in the hunt, you were pretty much glued to this one.”
The game was also aided by being the only bowl or major sports event on TV that day as well as a return to the 3 p.m. (8 p.m. Eastern time) kickoff.
“Bowl week was extraordinarily successful, (and) the feedback teams were very positive about the experience,” Derzis said.
ESPN has renewed the Hawaii Bowl for a six-year extension. The 2020 game is scheduled to match a representative from the Mountain West Conference against a team from Conference USA.
A date and time for the 2020 game have yet to be announced, but 14 of the past 16 games have been held on Christmas Eve. “Christmas Eve has, historically, worked very well for us,” Derzis said.
