The overnight television ratings are out for Monday's BCS bowl games and the Fiesta Bowl had a significant spike from last season. The overtime thriller between the Stanford Cardinal and Oklahoma State Cowboys did a 9.0 rating, which was a 34% increase from last season. The overtime thriller started off slowly, but picked up steam late and likely drew in a healthy dose of late viewers.
↵This increase should not be surprising due to a couple of reasons. The first is that last year's Fiesta Bowl featured Oklahoma versus Connecticut. While both were solid programs last season, that is not exactly the kind of matchup that sucks in viewers. More important for this year was the game featured two of the most dynamic offenses in the country and two of the biggest names heading into the 2012 NFL Draft: Andrew Luck and Justin Blackmon. Luck alone likely helped boost the Indianapolis rating into 24th out of 56 markets.
↵The top Fiesta Bowl tv ratings came from Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Birmingham, Portland and Austin. Oklahoma City was the biggest with a monster 36.7 rating for the game.