CU Buffs appearance in Alamo Bowl against BYU sets TV records

For the second consecutive year a ton of folks flipped their TV to watch the Deion Sanders’ CU Buffs play football culminating with a highly-viewed Alamo Bowl against the BYU Cougars.

The Valero Alamo Bowl shared on Tuesday that eight million people watched the Cougars pummel the Buffs 36-14 on Saturday. The makes it the most-watched Alamo Bowl ever, passing the 2010 contest between Michigan State and Texas Tech and the 2006 edition between Iowa and Texas which both garnered 7.8 million viewers.

While 2024’s game was a blow out from the start, the viewers got to see an emotional Coach Prime talk about leading his sons for the final time. Because it was the Sanders’ crew last time all together it should be no surprise that the game did a massive TV number given all the high ratings in the past.

Last season the Colorado Buffaloes were part of five of the 25 most-watched games, only Alabama was in more, which included both the SEC title game and the Rose Bowl. Ten of those 25 games were in the postseason, meaning CU had five of the 15 most-watched games of the regular season, most in the nation. This year was more of the same—through the regular season (12 games), Colorado was tied with Georgia in number of games with over three million viewers, 10 of CU’s dozen games played hit that mark.

Unfortunately for Prime’s team, the three most-watched games of the season for the black and gold were all runaway losses. The Alamo Bowl was the most-watched game of CU’s season followed by 6.22 million viewers for the contest at Kansas and another 5.67 million for the battle at Nebraska.

It’s likely the ratings will continue in 2025 but maybe take a dip now that Sanders’ sons are gone, including maybe the top pick in the NFL Draft, and so too is Heisman winner Travis Hunter.